THE DAZZLING COLLABORATION in the late 1750s of Robert Adam, Thomas Chippendale and some of the finest cabinet-makers of mid-eighteenth-century Edinburgh ensured that Dumfries House in Ayrshire was a spectacular manifestation of neo-Palladianism. Nearly two and a half centuries later, it remains one of Britain’s most completely preserved country houses. That Dumfries still contains nearly every piece of furniture commissioned or purchased for it by the 5th Earl of Dumfries, who built the house, along with original stucco decorations, remarkable tapestries and fine domestic wares is nothing short of miraculous. This is in part attributable to the fact that for much of its existence since the 5th Earl took up residence in 1760, Dumfries was never a principal family home. It was emphatically not one of those typical country houses that, in Evelyn Waugh’s words, ‘have been buggered about’ for centuries. Thus, the ‘thousand things’ recommended by Adam to his patron ‘that would answer charmingly for your habitation and that would tempt a saint’ were, once in place, hardly ever subjected to the wear and tear of family life. When the 5th Earl died in 1768 with no direct male heir, everything passed to his nephew whose daughter Elizabeth married Viscount Mountstuart, later to become the 2nd Marquess of Bute. His family owned extensive properties elsewhere (such as Mount Stuart on the Isle of Bute and Cardiff Castle), and Dumfries House became more or less surplus to requirements. It was not entirely left in aspic, however, and some sympathetic additions and alterations were made in the 1890s by the architect Robert Weir Schultz. Meanwhile, the Adam rooms with their outstanding ceilings and the Chippendale and Edinburgh furnishings assumed an almost mythical status among scholars and historians of the period, talked about rather than seen because, unlike, for example, the Saloon at Saltram in Devon – another great combination of Adam and Chippendale – Dumfries was rarely visited, written about or photographed. The eventual awakening of this sleeping princess came about through the smacking kiss of publicity that followed the present marquess’s announcement, three years ago, of his intention to sell the house, contents and land.

Negotiations were entered into between Lord Bute and the National Trust for Scotland to acquire the house for the public. These eventually broke down and a sale seemed inevitable. SAVE Britain’s Heritage, realising the urgency of the situation, stepped in and drew up a possible plan of how to acquire and preserve the house and to generate running costs. SAVE’s enthusiastic lobbying deserves the highest praise. In late April this year the Art Fund announced it would grant £2 million (later increased to £2.25 million, the largest pledge in the Fund’s history) and threw itself into the campaign. But at the end of May, in response to SAVE’s rescue bid, the Scottish Executive thought that the house was not a ‘financially viable’ proposition and refused to grant £5 million towards the purchase. This seemed extraordinarily shortsighted both from the point of view of Dumfries’s quality and drawing power and its position in an area of Scotland in need of socio-economic regeneration – the most tickable of boxes in any heritage enterprise. Almost certainly an element of not wishing to support what might have been construed as an elitist project coloured the Executive’s decision. By then the sale of the contents of the house, to be held on 12th and 13th July, was becoming a menacing reality. Christie’s two-volume catalogue, with its mouth-watering illustrations (and jaw-dropping estimates) of over six hundred lots, allowed a first sight of exactly what would be lost to the public. But the Art Fund was undeterred, and through its designation as a Schedule 3 body under the Inheritance Tax Act it was able to negotiate a private treaty sale with tax breaks for the vendor. Further grants were promised (£9 million from the Monument Trust for example) and support canvassed from the Prince of Wales’s Charities Foundation. The National Heritage Memorial Fund pledged £7 million, a generous sum but one that only highlights its inadequate annual government grant of £10 million. By 21st June the Scottish Executive reversed its earlier decision and agreed to contribute £5 million to the £45 million purchase price and endowment. Six days later it was announced that the Art Fund’s offer to Lord Bute had been accepted and that the Prince of Wales had contributed a loan of £20 million from his Foundation. All parties involved stressed the hair-raising nature of this eleventh-hour race. Prince Charles’s support and his crucial intervention in the final stages naturally filled the headlines, but the galvanising role of the Art Fund should never be underestimated when accounts come to be written of this remarkable episode.
What of the future for Dumfries? The rescue of the house involves a considerable business proposition on the lines suggested by SAVE. Income from the estate and its properties, including a new housing development (a condition of Prince Charles’s support) on land near the neighbouring town of Cumnock, will create new jobs, as will the running of the house itself. Local people have given their backing (and money) to the acquisition of Dumfries as a much needed attraction in a depressed area. It is fortunate for tourism that the estate is no great distance from Culzean Castle, another, albeit different, Adam house, the most visited poperty owned by the National Trust for Scotland, nor from Auckinlech House, the family home of James Boswell. Dumfries’s superb state of preservation means that there is no need of a long period of restoration (as was the case with that other timely rescue, Erddig, in North Wales), and only the usual amenities have to be put in place for the house to open its doors to the public next year.We can only pray that as little as possible is done to the interiors so that the public can share the sense of surprise and delight expressed by visitors to the house during the campaign to save it.

What of the future for Dumfries? The rescue of the house involves a considerable business proposition on the lines suggested by SAVE. Income from the estate and its properties, including a new housing development (a condition of Prince Charles’s support) on land near the neighbouring town of Cumnock, will create new jobs, as will the running of the house itself. Local people have given their backing (and money) to the acquisition of Dumfries as a much needed attraction in a depressed area. It is fortunate for tourism that the estate is no great distance from Culzean Castle, another, albeit different, Adam house, the most visited poperty owned by the National Trust for Scotland, nor from Auckinlech House, the family home of James Boswell. Dumfries’s superb state of preservation means that there is no need of a long period of restoration (as was the case with that other timely rescue, Erddig, in North Wales), and only the usual amenities have to be put in place for the house to open its doors to the public next year.We can only pray that as little as possible is done to the interiors so that the public can share the sense of surprise and delight expressed by visitors to the house during the campaign to save it.