Mount Stuart, Rothesay, Isle of Bute
Address
Mount Stuart, Rothesay, Isle of Bute PA20 9LRRecommended by
Highlight
12 zodiac windows situated high up in the main marble hallArtist, maker and date
Horatio Walter Lonsdale, c.1880Reason for highlighting
Visually decades before its time and completely bonkers. A feast for all the senses and worth every effort to visit. One of the inspirations behind Hogwarts. Pack your sandwiches and enjoy a grand day out on a beautiful Scottish Island.
Artist/maker notes
Horatio Walter Lonsdale (1844-1919) was born in Mexico in 1846. After training as an architect, Lonsdale established a long partnership with the architect William Burges, working with him as his principal artist on many of his major commissions, including Saint Fin Barre’s Cathedral, Cardiff Castle, Castell Coch and Burges’s Yorkshire churches. Burges’s biographer, Joseph Mordaunt Crook, sums up Lonsdale’s career thus, “a draughtsman of exceptional precision, his best work was all for Burges”.
Sources:
Horatio Walter Lonsdale on Wikipedia
Horatio Walter Lonsdale on the Victorian Web
Other comments
The original house was built in 1719, but was severely damaged by fire in 1877. Most of the contents survived, along with the wings of the building, which were incorporated into the present building. The new house, along with the Cathedral of the Isles, on the Isle of Cumbrae, is one of the finest achievements of the High Victorian Gothic Revival.
Further details of the house and gardens can be found on the Mount Stuart website, with more details of the horoscopes at Mount Stuart Horoscopes