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Mellerstain House
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mellerstain_House
Mellerstain House is a stately home north of Kelso in the Borders, Scotland. It is currently the home of the 13th Earl of Haddington.
Mellerstain was built between 1725 and 1778. The architect William Adam initially designed the east and west wings for George
Baillie and Lady Grisel Baillie. Work ceased after the wings were completed, and it was another 45 years before George Hamilton
commissioned Robert Adam to design and build the main mansion house. Hamilton was a son of the Earl of Haddington, and he
inherited the Mellerstain estate when Lady Grisel Baillie died, changing his name to Baillie as a mark of respect.
The mansion house is possibly the only remaining complete building designed by Robert Adam, as most of his other works were
additions to existing buildings. The Adelphi Building, in London, was a speculative neoclassical terraced housing development by
the Adam brothers but is now largely demolished, leaving Mellerstain House as an important record of Robert Adam's work.
The interior is a masterpiece of delicate and colourful plasterwork, comprising a small sitting room (originally a breakfast room), a
beautiful library (a double cube design), a music room (originally the dining room), the main drawing room, with original silk brocade
wall coverings, a small drawing room (originally a bed chamber) and a small library (originally two dressing rooms). The main
entrance hall leads to a long corridor with a staircase to the bedroom floor, from which there is a small back staircase leading to a
large gallery room running north to south.
The house stands in 80 hectares of magnificent parkland, with an Italianate formal terraced garden at the rear, with a sweeping
stretch of lawn descending to a lake. These gardens were designed around 1910 by Sir Reginald Blomfield.
Tyninghame House, Haddington
SEAT OF THE EARL OF HADDINGTON
The house is a grand Baronial mansion, built of red sandstone, and represents an earlier house much altered by architect William
Burn in 1829. The estate, long the property of the Archbishops of St. Andrews, has been owned by the Earls of Haddington since
1628.
Inside, the house had some of the grandest and beautifully-furnished rooms of any house in Scotland and once held a fine collection
of early portraits. However, following the death of George Baillie-Hamilton, the 12th Earl Haddington in 1986, the house and its
contents were sold. In 1987, the auction house Sotheby's held a massive sale in the house, with English and continental furniture,
Gothic tapestries, English and Scottish silver, European and Oriental ceramics and paintings, including the portraits, all falling under
the hammer. With the risk it would be dispersed at auction, the contents of the library were purchased by the National Library of
Scotland. The core of this important collection is 345 volumes which belonged to the lawyer and politician Thomas Hamilton, 1st
Earl of Haddington (1563-1637), noted adviser to King James VI.
The house has subsequently been divided into flats and the Haddingtons now live at Mellerstain in the Scottish Borders.
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