The Palladian House of Dun near Montrose in Angus is possibly my favourite small country house. Designed by William Adam to replace an old tower house for David Erskine, the 13th Laird of Dun, it has spectacular views over the Montrose Basin.
Although typical of William Adam’s approach to country house design, he used a lot of creativity to fit many spacious rooms into a relatively small footprint, including cutting passages into rooms at angles to give access without stealing space. This is now a charming feature of the house and doesn’t detract from the overall symmetry of the building. It’s a charming house, but I love it even more for it’s covert symbolism.
Taking 13 years to build, the house was completed in 1743 and includes elaborate plasterwork in the Saloon by Joseph Enzer. This plasterwork contains the mask of Bacchus appearing on the ceiling, which makes sense given the banqueting function of the room. You can also see romaticised pastoral scenes, typical of the eighteenth century. There are real shells from Montrose Basin which were brought back to the house, dipped in plaster and stuck on the wall. There is a basket and a violin – like the shells they too are real, dipped in plaster and added as a feature, paying homage to the room’s entertaining purpose.
However, the plasterwork also contains a hidden, and dare I say, much more interesting layer of symbolism as well.
David Erskine was a Court of Session judge and a parliamentary commissioner who built his reputation and wealth through the Hanoverian regime. His portrait shows him draped in vast scarlet robes, proud and serious, but belies the fact that he was a Jacobite sympathiser hidden in plain site from the very regime he wished to overthrow.
With any admission of his Jacobite support almost certainly to lead to death, Lord Dun instead had his sympathies woven into the fabric of his retreat. Lord Dun’s Jacobite sympathies are likely to have been influenced by his distant cousin, the Earl of Mar, who declared the son of deposed James II and VII as King of Scotland after he gathered a hunting party of around 800 men in Glen Quoich near Braemar during the Jacobite uprising of 1715.
The white roses are perhaps the most obvious Jacobite symbol – but one that can be explained away given the room’s stunning views over the property’s formal gardens and rose beds.
Mars, God of War, can be seen as either a Jacobite or a Hanoverian influence, depending on your point of view. A Hanoverain may see the Union Flag and Mars suppressing the Scottish Crown and the Lion of Scotland; a Jacobite may see the Crown of England and the Lion of England being suppressed. It has been suggested that the depiction of Mars is based on the likeness of the Earl of Mar.
Poseiden is also depicted on his sea chariot with a water nymph heralding his arrival – or perhaps the arrival of Charles Edward Stuart from across the water? You can also see the Fleur de Lys, representing France, and then a thistle with a Crown on the top of it. Furthermore, Minerva, Goddess of Wisdom is pointing at the Sun King, Louis XIV.
David Erskine lived to a good age and was never suspected as a Jacobite sympathiser by the Hanoverian authorities. Are we simply reading too much into this supposed symbolism, or was he a very lucky man?
To the Manor Unborn 