Cumnock, Scotland: Few things in the world raise the hairs on my neck like the sound of bagpipes. And, to the best of my knowledge, I don’t even have Scottish blood. So arriving, as I did, on a chilly evening at the steps of one of the majestic Georgian stately homes in Scotland to the tune of a piper playing from the rooftop, it hit me right in the feels, to borrow a rather overused idiom.
It’s dusk at Dumfries House, near Cumnock in East Ayrshire, about 60 kilometres south of Glasgow. Built for William Crichton-Dalrymple, 5th Earl of Dumfries, in 1759, the mansion is home to one of the most treasured interiors of the Scottish Enlightenment. It was saved some years back thanks to a personal intervention by Charles, the then Prince of Wales and now king, who guaranteed a £20 million loan (nearly $40 million today) which was raised by his charitable trust.
Dumfries House, was designed by renowned 18th-century architect brothers John, Robert and James Adam and built between 1754 and 1759. Credit: Nacho Rivera As part of a consortium they raised £45 million needed to stop its sale. He fell in love with the home and all of its grand contents, and opened it to the public the following year.
I haven’t come to view the astonishing collection of the finest mid-Georgian, English Rococo and Neoclassical-style furniture from Thomas Chippendale’s fashionable London workshop. Nor am I here in particular to view the magnificent art acquired by the 3rd Earl of Bute, who was prime .