Living in Scotland [antikvár]

A view of the head gardener's house at Mailderston, Duns. Outside of Scotland, there is an altogether too widely held belief that all Scots inhabit gloomy, stone-built castles tuckedimpregnably into heather-carpeted glens shrouded in the ubiquitous and romantic Highland mist. As in every generalization, there are elements of truth in this view; indeed, apart from the ancient keeps and fortresses thrown up for protection by the various landed clans of the North and families of the South in more primitive times, Victorian Scotland indulged those fantasies of a turbulent history with a proliferation of extravagantly patriotic homes conceived to flatter the egos and social ambitions of those whose fortunes derived from the Industrial Revolution. Queen Victoria herself set the pace with the purchase of her beloved Castle of Balmoral, her private celebration of the tartan and thistle, symbols of her Northern Realm. Local materials were abundant, and demand produced the craftsmen and the collective genius of architects such as James Stuart, William Burn, Thomas Hamilton, William Henry Playfair, Archibald Simpson, Alexander "Greek" Thompson and, of course, the speetacidar family of Adam. Thereafter came Sir Robert Lorimer and the innovatory Charles Rennie Mackintosh at the turn of the century. The Scots have been well served by their indigenous talent. Over the centuries, they have been intrepid travellers — voluntary and involuntary. The Grand Tour surreptitiously implanted aspirations towards classical grandeur; periods of milit-ary or diplomatic service in Europe, India, the Far East and the Americas, reaped rich rewards. The accumulated treasures from far-off lands have endured through the generations to stand side by side with locally made ornaments and furniture, porcelain, silver and paintings from the Scottish School, ranging from Sir Henry Raeburn and Allan Ramsay to William McTaggart, F.C.B. Cadell, S.J. Peploe, Joan Eardley and, more recently. Sir Robin PhUip-son, Ehzabeth Blackadder and Fionna Carlyle. A distinct style emerges, necessarily individual