Uploads from arjayempee, tagged boness, with geodata

Kinneil (12 of 12)

nobody@flickr.com (arjayempee) — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 03:44:45 -0800

arjayempee posted a photo:

So - what of the Hamiltons, whose house (and palace) this once was?

In 1323 the lands of Kinneal were granted by Robert I to Walter Fitzgilbert of Hamildon - from whom the Hamiltons descend. The Hamilton power-base was in Lanarkshire, in the western Scottish Lowlands, but it would seem that Kinneal's value to them lay in its proximity to Edinburgh - the centre of political power. The Hamiltons of Cadzow rose to become Lords Hamilton and then Earls of Arran. James, 2nd Earl of Arran was a grandson of King James II, and in 1536, he became next heir to the throne after the King's immediate family. With the death of King James V in 1542, the Earl of Arran stood next in line to the Scottish throne after the king's six-day-old newborn baby daughter, Mary Queen of Scots. If Mary had died as an infant, we would have had a Hamilton Royal family!

Through the years that followed, during which Arran, as Regent, walked a tight-rope between Protestants and Catholics, as well as between those who supported Henry VIII's plan to marry his son to Mary and those who supported an alliance with France - national affairs were often centred on Kinneil. In February 1560, French troops, stationed in Scotland since 1548 to support the pro-French faction, attacked and burnt Kinneil. After the assassination in 1570 of Regent Moray at Linlithgow by a Hamilton, Matthew Stewart, 4th Earl of Lennox, a bitter opponent of the Hamiltons (with a slightly weaker claim to the throne) "damaged the house with gunpowder and spoiled the lands".

King James VI stayed here in May 1582, to receive an envoy, Signor Paul, sent by the Duke of Guise with a gift of horses and gunpowder. The visit was controversial because Paul was known to have been involved in the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre of French protestants.

A century later, the troubles of the mid 16th century were a thing of the past and Britain was enjoying the troubles of the mid 17th century! The Stewarts had of course inherited the throne of England in the interim and taken much of the political turmoil that had surrounded them in Scotland away with them to London. Following the death of the 3rd Earl of Arran (who was a couple of cards short of a full deck!), the title passed to his great-nephew, James Hamilton, a fairly incompetent Royalist General in the Civil War, who was created 1st Duke of Hamilton by King Charles and later executed by Cromwell in 1649.

The Hamilton title and lands, including Kinneil, passed to the 1st Duke's brother, who died of wounds in 1651 and then to the 1st Duke's daughter Anne. She married William Douglas, 1st Earl of Selkirk and they undertook the rebuilding of Kinneil in 1677.

Scotland's most famous philosopher, Dugald Stewart, retired to Kinneil Palace in 1809 at the invitation of his friend, the Duke of Hamilton - the Hamiltons having meantime moved on to pastures bigger and grander. He lived here until his death in 1828. He and his family were the last occupants of Kinneil.

Kinneil (10)

nobody@flickr.com (arjayempee) — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 03:28:23 -0800

arjayempee posted a photo:

I have somewhat varying sources for the date of the tower-house that forms the north-east wing of Kinneil Palace. The usually reliable MacGibbon & Ross suggest that it was not built until after the destruction of the old keep in 1570, stating that "Most likely when quieter times came it was considered more suitable to erect the detached mansion than to restore the keep, and the adjoining house was accordingly then built" - which makes sense. Tranter too states that the tower-house was built after 1570, however the Kinneil website states "The palace was built in 1553 by James Hamilton, 2nd Earl of Arran." If that were the case, you would have thought it would have suffered the same fate as the keep, at the hands of Regent Morton.

I am also unsure about when Kinneil House came to be known as Kinneil Palace. It would seem to me that a fairly bog-standard 15th century L-plan tower-house standing beside the ruins of an ancient tower, would hardly qualify as a palace (even if lived in by an earl), and that the word palace was probably not adopted until the grand mid-17th century building works were completed (and lived in by a Duke).

This wall may perhaps support there being a more complicated story to be told. It shows the west wall of the 16th century tower-house's main block and the infill block added in 1600 (together with more recent work to the right). Sloping up across the top left corner of the wall, above a blocked up window (containing another, smaller and clearly old, blocked up window), are a line of stones that would appear to be a line of crow-steps - indicating the line of a gable. And above that there are two different periods of masonry, separated by an old wall angle.

Kinneil (7)

nobody@flickr.com (arjayempee) — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 01:49:22 -0800

arjayempee posted a photo:

The old castle of Kinneil, consisting of a lofty oblong keep, was built (as was often the case) on the edge of a ravine, which made the site easier to defend. As stated earlier, the castle was destroyed in 1570, so much so that the original internal layout of the tower can no longer be discerned.

The only original parts of the old castle that remain to be seen are here, round the back, facing the ravine to the west, where some of the original walling contains wide-splayed shot-holes, two and a half feet in width. They are slightly curiously positioned which, together with changes in masonry style, make me think they may have been moved when the tower was being rebuilt.

Kinneil (2)

nobody@flickr.com (arjayempee) — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 00:25:14 -0800

arjayempee posted a photo:

An initial glance at Kinneil reveals what appears to be an 18th century mansion house, with symmetrically arranged windows and little indication that it was ever a place of defence. The drawing above, which essentially shows the building as it looked 120 years ago looking much the same as it does today, tells us a little more about its antiquity. The chimneys on the right, reduced in height since this drawing was made, are tall and stepped, in the style of the 16th century, and crow-stepping is now evident on the gables - so perhaps we have a tower-house with a more 'modern' mansion attached to the left?

Well interestingly, the modern mansion, with all its symmetrical windows and balustrading, is actually the oldest part, although very much modified.

Kinneil (1)

nobody@flickr.com (arjayempee) — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 00:23:18 -0800

arjayempee posted a photo:

Now here's an interesting place - a place that is not what it looks like at first sight. This is Kinneil House or Palace, which stands in what is now a public park, at the west end of Borrowstounness (or Bo'ness as we usually call it these days) - a small town west of Edinburgh, on the south shore of the Firth of Forth, and just to the east of the sprawling oil refineries at Grangemouth.

Usually but not always, in Britain anyway, palaces are the residences of royalty and bishops, but the word is occasionally used to describe other grand aristocratic mansions. Kinneil has not always been called a palace, but it has been for centuries the home of one of Scotland's more influential aristocratic families - the Hamiltons.

Kinneil (11)

nobody@flickr.com (arjayempee) — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 03:28:50 -0800

arjayempee posted a photo:

In 1922, Bo'ness Town Council purchased Kinneil estate and no doubt after talking about it for 14 years, began the work of demolishing the buildings in 1936 (seen happening here). The old keep was totally gutted (it remains as four walls and a roof to this day). However, when the men with sledge-hammers started demolishing the 16th century tower-house, behind two inches of 17th century plasterwork, they discovered the most extensive, complete and well preserved series of 16th century wall and ceiling paintings ever found in Scotland. In what is now known as the Parable Room, they discovered six magnificent episodes from the parable of the Good Samaritan, showing life sized figures against a background of rocks, trees and walled cities. In the other chamber, known as the Arbour Room, are further biblical subjects below a frieze of animals and birds.

Much of the palace roof was then replaced to preserve the paintings, and the building is now in the care of Historic Scotland. It opens a couple of times a year for public viewing.

Kinneil (9)

nobody@flickr.com (arjayempee) — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 02:53:40 -0800

arjayempee posted a photo:

The 16th century tower-house is three storeys and an attic in height, with the usual vaulted ground floor. The first floor room in the north-west corner, within the early 17th century extension, contains two mural chambers, one of which extends into the corbelled out rectangular projection shown here. It is a somewhat curious feature - of little functional value one would think, but if it wasn't functional, it must have been decorative, which, round the back of an otherwise severely plain building, seems equally improbable.

Kinneil (8)

nobody@flickr.com (arjayempee) — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 02:31:50 -0800

arjayempee posted a photo:

Having walked around the back of the old keep (castles are so much easier to look at when they are in public parks!), I am now looking at the 15th century tower-house from the north-east. With the other parts of Kinneil Palace out of sight, this part can be viewed in isolation.

As can be seen from this side, this was an L-plan building, fairly plain, with the usual crow-stepped gables and a stair-tower built in the angle. In or around the year 1600, it was decided to extend the building, and this was done by filling in much of the angle of the L. The stair-tower is therefore no longer visible as it is buried in the middle of the building somewhere, along with the original front door that it contained. The green door visible towards the right, is the new door.

This 1600 addition is now completely roofless, the white framed windows visible here being painted onto the boards that have been used to shut up the window openings. The roofs over the old wing and part of the main block have been maintained to protect some old 16th century mural paintings discovered in the 20th century, when the building was about to be demolished.

Kinneil (6)

nobody@flickr.com (arjayempee) — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 01:05:06 -0800

arjayempee posted a photo:

This view is from the south. The two slate roofed towers were added in the mid 17th century, when Kinneil Castle was being converted into Kinneil Palace, beyond them is the old 15th century keep, rebuilt when the towers were being built. The ballustrading along the front of the keep does not continue round the sides and back, making it look more like the keep it had formerly been. Both of the two nearer towers contained stairs, the larger tower containing a great square staircase for the use of 'the quality' when they came visiting, the smaller tower containing a service stair.

The south wall of the southmost tower looks somewhat tatty. The horizontal beams mark the positions of blocked up windows and the sticky-out stones, called 'tuskings', were left there to key planned future walls. These 'future walls' were never built, so far as I am aware, but indicate that the Hamiltons perhaps intended to build on to this end of the building and complete a symmetrical design.

Grand houses and palaces of that time often consisted of a central block, with almost separate wings, built forward of the central block, so as to form three sides of a courtyard. By rebuilding the old keep and connecting it to the early 17th century tower-house, they were two-thirds the way to achieving a 'grand design', but appear never to have finished the job by adding a south wing - probably because they moved on elsewhere.

Kinneil (5)

nobody@flickr.com (arjayempee) — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 00:45:41 -0800

arjayempee posted a photo:

In this plan by MacGibbon and Ross, beautifully coloured in by me, the great oblong 15th century keep (blue), with its 6ft thick walls, becomes immediately obvious. The L-plan tower-house (red) can be seen to the north (right), within the angle of which, a later addition (pink) was made around about the year 1600. The final stage of work was the rebuilding of the keep and the construction of two towers (black) to join it all together into one.

Kinneil (3)

nobody@flickr.com (arjayempee) — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 00:44:47 -0800

arjayempee posted a photo:

As we will see, Kinneil House consists of three parts, the oldest part of which is a great oblong, fifteenth century tower, 56 feet 6 inches long by 31 feet 6 inches wide, with walls 6 feet in thickness and a vaulted ground floor. This was largely demolished in 1570 by the forces of the Regent Morton - a fierce hater of the Hamiltons. It was replaced in the late 16th century by an L-plan tower-house, built to the right of the old keep and separated from it. A century later, in the reign of King Charles II, the keep was rebuilt in the style of the time and the two buildings were joined together.

Kinneil (4)

nobody@flickr.com (arjayempee) — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 00:45:37 -0800

arjayempee posted a photo:

A view of Kinneil taken in 1915 (property of Falkirk Museum), showing the building when it was still harled. It also still had its tall 16th century chimneys and a ogee shaped cupola on the main roof.