architecture, eyecatcher, Mausoleum, Scotland, South Lanarkshire

The Pleasure Dome: Hamilton Mausoleum, South Lanarkshire

Just south of Glasgow an immense drum topped with a dome can be glimpsed from the M74 motorway. This is the mausoleum commissioned by the 10th Duke of Hamilton. When he was interred there in 1852, it was hailed in the newspapers as ‘the most costly and magnificent temple for the reception of the dead in the world’, although with the caveat ‘always excepting the Pyramids’.

Alexander Douglas-Hamilton, 10th Duke of Hamilton and 7th Duke of Brandon (1767-1852) by Henry Raeburn (1756-1823). Private Collection.

Alexander, 10th Duke of Hamilton (1767-1852) inherited Hamilton Palace from his father in 1819. He had been on the Grand Tour and had a passion for arts and antiquities, building up a vast and important collection.

Unknown artist, View of the South Front of Hamilton Palace, ca. 1800, Watercolor, pen, and black ink on medium, slightly textured, cream wove paper, Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection, B1975.4.1641. Public Domain.

A number of architects were consulted about the planned mausoleum, including the Duke’s kinsman David Hamilton (1768-1843). Hamilton designed the crypt with niches for the coffins of many generations to come.

But the rest of the building we see today was built to a design by David Bryce (1803-1876) based on a sketch by the Duke himself. By 1852 the crypt was ready to receive the remains of the Duke’s ancestors which were brought to the mausoleum from the old church in Hamilton. The building was still incomplete when the duke died in September of the same year, although he was immediately laid to rest in his sarcophagus in the upper chamber and work continued around him.

The Duke was fascinated by all things Egyptian and had asked a specialist, Mr Pettigrew, to embalm his body after his death. He then wished to be placed in a sarcophagus which he had purchased. This casket, ‘executed by the most cunning workmen of the Pharoahs’ featured a female face and was thought to have been used in the burial of an Egyptian queen: according to one source the Duke ordered it to be further chiselled out to make room for his body.

The Sarcophagus as pictured in the Illustrated London News in 1882.

Not everyone was impressed with the Duke’s mausoleum (or the Duke for that matter: he was considered self-important). In 1863 Lady Waterford found it in poor taste, writing that it was a ‘monument of pride’ in which the Duke ‘reposes alone […] under an immense doom [dome] in the sarcophagus of an Egyptian queen’.

In 1943 a novel called The Pleasure Dome was published. It was the work of Elizabeth Kyle, and the story was based on the history of Hamilton Palace, and the colourful characters associated with it. Elizabeth Kyle was a pen-name of Agnes Mary Robertson Dunlap (1901-1982), who also published as Mary Forsyth and Jan Ralston, although she used her real name for her journalism. Her first novel was published in 1934 when she was described as ‘not one of those writers who derive local colouring from their imagination’: instead she drew upon her experiences of wandering ‘about Europe and America in a more or less vagabond way in order to satisfy her craving for adventure’. She also travelled widely as a correspondent for both the Manchester Guardian and the Glasgow Herald.

The mausoleum is hard to photograph so here’s the dome from a jaunty angle. The plaque has a Latin inscription telling that the 10th Duke erected the mausoleum for himself and his descendants.

The Flâneuse is rambling, but there is a good reason for introducing the book. Kyle’s characters include the Duke of Hamilton, his architect, and the architect’s assistant Mr Connell, a man who has experience in building ‘whigmaleeries’. This wonderful word instantly evokes something enchanted or whimsical, but the Folly Flâneuse reached for her dictionary to double-check: whigmaleerie – ‘a fanciful ornament or contrivance’. Also in the cast of characters was the Duke’s father-in-law William Beckford, builder of whigmaleeries including Fonthill Abbey in Wiltshire to a design by James Wyatt and Beckford’s Tower in Bath (H.E. Goodridge, architect of Beckford’s Tower, was one of the men who submitted a design for the mausoleum at Hamilton Palace).

Charles Wild. The exterior of Fonthill Abbey, the seat of William Beckford. Great Britain, c. 1830. © Victoria and Albert Museum, London. https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O1138063/fonthill-abbey-watercolour-drawing-wild-charles/

The mausoleum featured on many nineteenth century picture postcards, but one in particular caught the eye of the Flâneuse. The message on the front is quite conventional, with Howard sending lots of love to his sweetheart in 1904, but the reverse, written in code, suggests clandestine meetings and illicit affairs. Upon cracking the code Howard is found to be above reproach: he tells Lilian his cold is getting better and comments on the weather. Incurable romantics will however be pleased to know that Howard and Lilian married in 1910 and had a long life together.

Postcard sent in 1904. Courtesy of a private collection.

The family collection, including the treasures collected by the 10th Duke, was sold in a magnificent sale in 1882. In the early 1920s mineral workings under the estate threatened the stability of the palace and the mausoleum. In 1921 the bodies in the crypt, along with the 10th Duke in his sarcophagus, were reinterred in the nearby Bent Cemetery, where a simple monument marks their site (the remains of two most recent Dukes were reinterred on the Isle of Arran). Only the plinth which once held the sarcophagus remains in the upper room of the mausoleum.

The 13th Duke of Hamilton sold a vast chunk of the estate, including the palace, mausoleum and the hunting lodge called Chatelherault to Hamilton Town Council in the early 1920s. Work began almost immediately to demolish the palace, and there were calls to pull down the mausoleum too. Happily, local interest was so strong that the plans were abandoned. Today the mausoleum stands as an unlikely eye-catcher in the midst of playing fields and cricket pitches.

For much more on the history of the mausoleum visit the Low Parks Museum in Hamilton or see the excellent Virtual Hamilton Palace website https://vhpt.org

Two lions guard the entrance to the vault. One is on duty and awake, whilst the other sleeps until it is his turn to stand sentry. The lions and the masks were carved by Alexander Handyside Ritchie of Edinburgh.

The mausoleum is open for very entertaining guided tours on certain days each year. There’s more here https://www.slleisureandculture.co.uk/info/201/hamilton_mausoleum/234/tours

Happily the rules have been relaxed and one may wander at will.

Thank you for reading. The Flâneuse is always pleased to receive any thoughts or comments. Please scroll down to the foot of the page to get in touch.

architecture, belvedere, eyecatcher, Hertfordshire, Monument, Observatory, Tower

Stratton’s Folly, Little Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire

View of the tower by John Varley, 1823. Courtesy of Chris Beetles Gallery, St James's, London. Full details below.

Just outside Little Berkhamsted in Hertfordshire stands a lofty circular brick tower which sits on an octagonal base. It was built towards the end of the eighteenth century by the Stratton family and has, appropriately, a tall tale attached. The eye-catcher was a popular subject with artists, and a number of very pretty views survive.

architecture, Art, bridge, eyecatcher, garden history, landscape garden, wiltshire

The Palladian Bridge, Wilton House, Wiltshire

The Palladian Bridge at Wilton House, in Wiltshire, was built in 1736-37 for Henry Herbert, the 9th Earl of Pembroke. The design was his own, and such was his passion for building that he became known as the ‘Architect Earl’. The bridge crosses the River Nadder which forms the boundary between the formal gardens and informal landscape.

architecture, belvedere, eyecatcher, Folly, landscape garden, sussex, Tower

Saxonbury Tower, Eridge Park, East Sussex

In 1828 Henry Nevill, 2nd Earl of Abergavenny, built a tower on high ground at Eridge Castle, on the extensive Nevill Estate in East Sussex, close to the border with Kent. The elegant tapering tower was both belvedere with ‘magnificent’ prospect and eye-catcher. It echoed the architecture of the multi-turreted mansion begun in about 1787 with work continuing well into the nineteenth century. After falling into decay the tower found a new purpose in the last years of the twentieth century.

architecture, Buckinghamshire, eyecatcher, Folly, garden history, Well

The Egyptian Springs, Hartwell House, Buckinghamshire

Searching for an image of the Egyptian Spring, a garden ornament at Hartwell House in Buckinghamshire, the Folly Flâneuse found a picture postcard from the early years of the 20th century. But instead of the usual cheery message to a friend, the back of the card promised palatable prizes. So why was a folly being used to promote foodstuffs?

Arch, architecture, country house, eyecatcher, garden history, Ireland, Lodge

The Dromana Gate, Co. Waterford, Ireland

Dromana House in County Waterford enjoys wonderful views over the mighty Blackwater river, but the approach to the house crosses a tributary, the Finnisk, and there’s a surprise for anyone visiting for the first time. The road curves, and suddenly there is the most perfect of scenes: a tranquil river crossed by a bridge leading to a lodge built in a magnificent melange of the gothic and the oriental.

Entrance to the Dromana Desmesne across the river Finnisk. Postcard sent in 1904. Courtesy of a private collection.

The bridge was originally a wooden structure, with a central drawbridge allowing boats to pass in the days when the river was navigable. Old postcards show that the bridge originally had ogee-arched railings to match the lodge, but even by 1928 the bridge was becoming worn ‘under the strain of heavy traffic’, and strengthening and safety works in the later twentieth century saw the wooden bridge and railings replaced with concrete and steel.

In the early nineteenth century Dromana was the seat of Henry Villiers Stuart (1803-1874), created 1st Baron de Decies in 1839. The tale is told that a papier-mâché arch was erected, where the lodge stands today, to welcome Stuart when he returned to Dromana with his new bride in 1826. The arch was said to have been fashioned in an indo-gothic style to help the happy couple remember their honeymoon in Brighton, where they would have seen George IV’s Royal Pavilion. Stuart and his wife were apparently so taken with the design that they decided to recreate it in a more substantial fashion.

One of the pairs of doors to each side of the arch. One is a dummy to keep the symmetry.

No records can be found to corroborate this story (although such ephemeral celebratory arches were certainly in vogue in this period). In fact, the whole story of Villiers Stuart’s marriage is rather mysterious. He is said to have married Theresia Pauline Ott (c.1802-1867), a Viennese-born widow, in a Catholic ceremony in London in 1826, and a son, Henry, was born in 1827. In 1839 the marriage was solemnised in Christ Church, Marylebone, when the curate noted in the register that the couple had been ‘heretofore married in the city of Dublin according to the Ritual Ceremonies of the Roman Catholic Church’, but crucially no date is given. No records of an 1826 marriage could be found after Lord de Decie’s death in 1874, making his son illegitimate, and therefore unable to inherit the title. This was a ’cause celebre‘ of the day, and the ‘exceptionally interesting peerage case’, filled the courtroom and the newspapers for some weeks in 1876.

Surprisingly few accounts of the lovely lodge can be found, but we do know it was extant by 1835 when a Scottish tourist, Robert Graham, saw a ‘remarkable bridge’ with a building with a ‘pear-shaped cupola’ at the end of it.* The ‘costly fanciful structure’ was noted by another writer in 1844, and in 1848 John Bernard Burke (of ‘Peerage’ fame) described it as ‘singularly fanciful and striking’ and ‘looking like some romantic scene in the Arabian Nights’.

Eastern gate of the Jummah Musjid at Delhi, by Thomas Daniell, print, aquatint, 1795, London. Victoria and Albert Museum, London IS.242:1-1961. https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O159237/eastern-gate-of-the-jummah-aquatint-daniell-thomas/

The architect is thought to be Martin Day (?1797-?1860), who is known to have worked at Dromana in the correct period. Surviving drawings of the lodge by Day are dated 1849, suggesting that it was perhaps remodelled or renovated at that date. The inspiration behind the lodge remains a mystery – is the Brighton honeymoon story true (probably not – the court case suggests they went straight to Scotland after the wedding)? Had Villiers Stuart or his architect seen Oriental Scenery, the volumes of views of India produced by the Daniell brothers in 1795-1807 (above)? Were they aware of Sezincote, the Mughal palace in the Cotswolds built by Samuel Pepys Cockerell, with the assistance of Thomas Daniell, for his brother Charles in the first years of the nineteenth century? Wherever the idea came from, we should be grateful it did, and that this joyful structure survives today.

View from the Bridge.

The Irish Georgian Society restored the decrepit lodge in 1968, and further repairs were made in the 1990s, but the lodge is once again in need of some care. In 2023 the IGS gave a grant to support the preparation of a building report to investigate how to ‘reinstate this structure to its former glory’.

The bridge and lodge are freely accessible. The house at Dromana was reduced to a more manageable size in the twentieth century and remains the home of the Villiers Stuart family. You can read more about the history and visiting here https://dromanahouse.com

That’s the last folly (for now, at least) from the Flâneuse’s recent Irish jaunt. If all goes to plan next week’s post will go off at a tasty tangent. Thank you for reading, and as ever you can share thoughts and comments at the foot of the page.

*This information is from J.A.K. Dean’s impressive gazetteer of the gate lodges of Ireland, and in particular the volume for the province of Munster.

architecture, belvedere, Dovecote, eyecatcher, Folly, Ireland, landscape garden

The Wonderful Barn, near Leixlip, County Kildare, Ireland.

In January 1739 (1740 new style) Katherine Conolly sat in her Dublin town house writing to her sister. Although close by the fire she complained she was still freezing, and she despaired of the severe weather. She wrote of her efforts to feed the poor which included sending ‘4 score loves of breed every wick’ (spelling was not her strong point) to the labourers and needy on her country estate at Castletown.  A few years later she commissioned this superlative silo to conserve grain for times of need, although cannily it doubled as a fanciful eye-catcher from the house at Castletown.

architecture, eyecatcher, Folly, garden history, Northumberland, sham church

Newminster Abbey, Morpeth, Northumberland

In 1138 Newminster Abbey was established close to the River Wansbeck on the edge of Morpeth, Northumberland. The first inhabitants were Cistercian monks from Fountains Abbey, in Yorkshire, who remained until the abbey’s dissolution in 1537. By the 19th century little could be seen apart from scattered masonry and bumps in the ground. Early in the 20th century parts were rebuilt as a grand garden ornament and tourist attraction, with perhaps not quite the academic rigour one might expect today.