Newhailes National Trust

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Newhailes is a National Trust for Scotland (NTS) property located between the large conurbations of Edinburgh and Musselburgh and is in the early stages of its revival project. At first glance, to an untrained eye, all one might see is a magnificent house surrounded by empty fields, woodland areas and derelict walls. However, look past this initial emptiness and the true character of the landscape shows through, revealing evidence of impressive works of art and architecture that would have wowed the guests of the influential Dalrymple family that lived at Newhailes from the 18th Century until 1996.

The Palladian style house is intact (figure 1), and although a bit shabby, really gives a feel as to how grand these landscaped gardens once used to be. The outlines of the lawns and Ladies Walkway are still visible and walls still stand around what used to be the flower garden, and down through the woodlands, an enchanting water garden with the remains of a Teahouse and Shell Grotto sit quietly among the trees (Baker 2007a).

Figure 1: View of Newhailes house from lawn.

Source: Baker (2007b)

Newhailes National Trust

The NTS talk about Newhailes being project of ‘revival’ as many of the original features of the landscape are still present and just need coaxing back out in to the open (Simpson, 2007) Another term that would fit in to the project at Newhailes could be ‘restoration’ which refers to repairing or rehabilitating the structures that already exist (Sales, 1995).

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When the NTS were given Newhailes by Lady Antonia Dalrymple in 1996, they launched the largest appeal in its history (Gilchrist, 2002) to secure and preserve both the building and its contents. The building itself was almost like a time capsule, with a great deal of interior detail, such as upholstery and wallpaper still intact. The conservators, led by Ian Gow decided to take the ‘conserve as found’ approach. Gow said, “There is a tapestry still hung on 1730’s tacks- I was not going to sacrifice these to the goddess of Velcro.” (Cited in Binney, 2003)

This ‘conserve as found’ approach or to do ‘as much as necessary and as little as possible’ (National Trust for Scotland, 2006) is seen as the most appropriate method of conservation for the house and does make sense, because a building is a static object and largely protected from the elements. A landscape however is dynamic and alive and will just deteriorate over time and some features could disappear completely.

Why is Newhailes worthy of revival?

People:

The Scottish architect James Smith, whose most impressive commissions were buildings such as Hamilton Palace, Lanarkshire and Dalkeith House, Edinburgh (Macaulay, 2007), originally built Newhailes for himself and his family. Financial issues forced him to sell and in 1709, Sir David Dalrymple bought the property (National Trust for Scotland, 2006). The Dalrymple family were very well known in Scotland as a dynasty comprising of lawyers, judges, and politicians and as key figures in the several generations of the Scottish Enlightenment. Like many significant figures who worked in Edinburgh, they had their country home to retire to, and this was Newhailes.

Location:

Newhailes is the largest area of woodland in Edinburgh (Simpson, 2007) and is a valuable area of green space. Greenspace Scotland conducted a survey in 2007 to discover what the public perception of green spaces was, how often they used them, and what they used them for. In the Edinburgh and Lothian’s area, 51% use the green spaces once a week or more often, with 51% using the green spaces to go for a walk, and 20% to walk their dog (Greenspace Scotland, 2007). Newhailes used to be surrounded to the north and west by the parkland areas of two neighbouring estates, Brunstane and Duddingston, but now urban developments are creeping in, making the green space of Newhailes even more valuable. A 1995 National Grid map (Appendix 1) shows the encroachment of houses on all but one side of the Newhailes property

Value:

Historic Scotland has registered Newhailes in their Inventory of Gardens and Designed Landscapes (Historic Scotland, 2001) and the property also contains a number of category A, B and C listed buildings. Details of these structures can be found in Appendix 2. To be registered on the Historic Scotland list, a property must display some or all of the following values: historical, work of art, horticultural, architectural, nature conservation and scenic.

The NTS have a set of principles for their conservation work and one of these principles is that they should take a holistic approach to each property and consider all the different values on an equal level. All aspects of significance should be considered, including intangible associations such as personal attachments and experiences (National Trust for Scotland, 2001)

Overview of the revival project.

Most generations of the Dalrymple family changed or added something to Newhailes and there are now many different layers (see Appendix 3) so the NTS are using historic maps from 1750 and 1798 as a basis for the layer they are attempting to revive. For instance, the lawn at the front of the house used to be a flower garden (Simpson, 2007), but this was much earlier than 1750, so the NTS would never consider returning it to its former use. However, the house and the landscape have many strong links to each other and the revival of the landscape should be sympathetic to these links.

The NTS has produced a detailed management plan for the Newhailes landscape, to be implemented over fifty years in four phases. This plan has divided the landscape in to ten character areas. A full list of these areas is in Appendix 4.

Due to the large amount of work involved in this revival project, this case study is just going to focus on the following aspects of the landscape:

Gladiator and Sphinx statues: Phase 1

Flower Garden: Phase 2

Shell Grotto: Phase 3

Most of the work planned for Phase 1 of the project is for the trees and pathways. Once this preliminary work is underway, other structures around the estate can be worked on, and this will be vital in capturing the imagination of the local community. At Painshill Park in Surrey, the first structure to be renovated was the Gothic Temple (Baker 2007c) and the main reason for this was to inspire the local community and get them excited about the rest of the project.

* Gladiator and Sphinx statues

The NTS have sufficient evidence about these statues to be able to replace them or at least provide accurate interpretation to show what used to exist on the lawn of Newhailes.

The originals were made by the famous English sculptor John Cheere, and receipts from his workshop show that the Gladiators and Sphinxes were purchased in 1740. He only ever made two styles of Gladiator: one with a dagger and one with a spear (Simpson, 2007), and the lead fixings are still visible in the stone plinths (figure 2) so it is possible to discern what the statues looked like and how big they were.

Figure 2: Plinth from Gladiator.

Source: Baker (2007b)

There is a lot of classical iconography linking the house and landscape at Newhailes and the Sphinx are a good example of this. The famous library, created by Sir David Dalrymple, became known as ‘the most learned library in Europe’ (Simpson, 2007). The Sphinx, who are creatures associated with wisdom, are thought to be guarding this learned place in the same way as the Sphinx protected the city of Thebes, home to one of the world’s oldest known libraries.

The Sphinx statues were photographed and featured in an article in The Country Life magazine in 1917 (figure 3), but unfortunately were stolen, along with the Gladiators in 1949.

Figure 3: Photograph of Sphinx from Country Life Magazine.

Source: National Trust for Scotland (no date)

John Cheere also provided statues for other properties such as Stourhead, Wiltshire and Castle Howard, Yorkshire. Castle Howard was once home to over thirty lead statues, but a number of these went missing in the 19th Century. It was decided during the restoration of Castle Howard that these sculptures were an integral and dramatic part of the landscape, and there are now 16 restored original sculptures on display in the grounds, and two copies (Castle Howard, 2005). Specialist lead restorer Michael Major rebuilt these two copies using archival evidence and traditional techniques. He constructed one of the copies, a statue of Hercules and Antaeus, using a mould taken from an identical 18th Century cast. For the second copy, a statue of Pluto and Proserpina, he used a small 17th Century copy of the original statue to scale up from, using a traditional sculpture technique called pointing (Castle Howard, 2005).

The NTS have been in touch with Castle Howard, and Michael Major is able to make new sculptures based on the evidence the NTS have and the examples of John Cheere’s work at Castle Howard. These sculptures are likely to cost in the region of �20,000 each! (Simpson, 2007) However, Newhailes is still an open landscape and the sculptures would again be vulnerable to vandalism and theft. Until the statues are restored, it is planned to have some form of visual interpretation (National Trust for Scotland, 2006). Presently there is a metal book explaining about the position of the Sphinx (figure 4) that matches in with other interpretation around the landscape.

Figure 4: Current interpretation for Sphinx and Gladiators

Source: Baker (2007b)

* Flower Garden

The Flower Garden is perhaps one of the most intriguing areas of the Newhailes property as the only thing left visible is the damaged wall and structures around the outside (Baker, 2007a). The photograph in figure 5 shows the Flower Garden in the 1890’s, and this is thought to be the same design that was implemented by Christian Dalrymple in 1818 with the assistance of garden designer, John Hay. Although none of the soft landscaping exists today, the NTS have lists of plants, diary entries from Christian Dalrymple and receipts from nurseries, so they know what would have been here originally, but problems sourcing these plants may still be encountered if the heritage varieties are no longer available (Goulty, 1993). This is very different from the situation at Hill of Tarvit in Fife, where there is a walled garden, but no solid evidence as to what was inside. The NTS have decided to create a new design for this garden in keeping with the Arts and Crafts style of the rest of the property (Simpson, 2007) and they do know that Robert Lorimer was involved with some of the design, so can compare the new design with other Lorimer gardens in Fife, such as Earlshall and Kellie Castle.

Figure 5: Flower Garden, circa 1890.

Source: National Trust for Scotland (No date)

The photograph in figure 6 shows the Flower Garden as it stands today, with damaged walls and established trees such as Acer pseudoplatanus. Returning an abandoned garden to cultivation of this standard can be an expensive process (Tabor, 1997) but once underway could provide additional income to the property from increased visitor numbers and plant sales.

Figure 6: Remains of the Flower Garden.

Source: Baker (2007b)

* Shell Grotto and Cascade

The Shell Grotto is thought to have been finished in 1781 and the NTS have photographs dated from around the 1960’s with the roof intact, so most of the decay on the structure now has only happened in the last fifty years. As it stands today (figure 7), the Shell Grotto has no roof and the interior decoration is absent along with many of the stones that would have adorned the exterior walls.

Figure 7: Front of Shell Grotto.

Source: Baker (2007)

When researching Newhailes, a team of archaeologists and NTS employees working in this area made many discoveries. One was that the floor in the Grotto is still intact, minus a couple of tiles but otherwise is in remarkably good condition. There is a small fireplace in the Grotto, and with the use of smoke bombs, they discovered pipes inside the walls that carried the smoke out to either side of the Grotto. In front of the structure is a large dip in the ground, which used to be a pool and featured the Shell Cascade. The brickwork of the Shell Cascade was also revealed during the archaeological research (see figure 8). For health and safety reasons and to preserve the remaining features, the floor of the grotto and the Shell Cascade have been covered back over with soil until they are ready to be restored.