History of the Stewarts | Castles and Buildings
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Mount Stuart - Isle of Bute
Walter, 3rd High Steward of Scotland, held land in Bute from as early as 1204. Robert II had 15 children in all by his two marriages and further 8 illegitimate children About 1385, John Stewart of Bute was granted the hereditary office of Sheriff of Bute by his father Robert II and from him the present Crichton-Stewart family, Marquesses of Bute, descend. In 1498 James I made the then Stuart of Bute Hereditary Captain of Rothesay Castle. After Rothesay Castle´s destruction in 1685 the family lived in the Old Mansion House in Rothesay High Street.
The name "Mount_Stuart" is first found when Queen Anne created Sir James Stuart, 3rd Baronet, to be Earl of Bute, Viscount Kingarth, Lord Mount Stuart, Cumra and Inchmernock [sic], 14 April 1703. The 2nd Earl had plans drawn up for a fine Georgian house on the present site in 1716 and the family moved in to their new house in 1719. The central block was destroyed by fire on the morning of 3 December 1877 but out of the ashes emerged the present building, commissioned by the 3rd Marquess from the noted Scottish architect, Sir Robert Rowand Anderson. The side wings of the old house were retained to be used as offices, staff accommodation and storage. The new house was very much a Gothic dream-come-true-in-stone of its creator, John Patrick, 3rd Marquess of Bute. Every tiny detail had to be approved by him before it could go ahead and it is not therefore surprising that it was left unfinished at his death in 1900. The late John, 6th Marquess and his wife, Jennifer, put a tremendous amount of energy and loving attention into restoration work and completing some of the details of the building. They also commissioned new decoration, stained glass, sculpture and cabinet-work to be in keeping with what was already there.
Almost all the contents of the original house were saved from the 1877 fire and the walls are now hung with wonderful family and other portraits and the place is a treasure-house of beautiful things. However, it is the building itself, in all its detail and ornamentation, red Corsehill sandstone from Dumfriesshire, marble, alabaster, stained glass and all, that is the real wonder. In the basic plan, a square within a square, the main reception rooms are on the first floor, the piano nobile, raised above the ground floor and vaulted basements. In the centre stands the masterpiece of the house, the Marble Hall, almost sixty feet square and rising the full height of the building, lit from above by twelve stained-glass windows and flanked by lesser halls to north and south. A great marble and alabaster staircase rises at one side, the ceiling decorated with stars. Also on the first-floor level to the south, there are three libraries, leading one out of the other, with an original Victorian heated swimming pool (a world first) below, while to the north stands the chapel, lit from above by a hidden cupola glazed in pink, throwing a wonderfully warm glow onto the white marble beneath. A telephone was installed in 1887 and the house was the first in Scotland to be wired for electricity. Many well-known designers and master-craftsmen were involved in the whole project and the work is fully documented in the family archives preserved in one of the Libraries and the Muniment Room.
During the 1980s, the 6th Marquess of Bute began an ambitious programme of work on the house – to complete unfinished features, restore existing decoration and create new artistic works. Lord Bute also undertook a major overhaul of the exterior fabric of the building.