Mavisbank House.

The quiet and the still.

A study of ruins in snow.

Advanced Higher Art project 2007.

The conversion of a derelict and disused country house into a boutique hotel.

Advanced Higher Art Project 2007.

Architecture Project; Mavisbank - 2007

Mavisbank after the 1973 fire.

This is Mavisbank as it appeared in William Adam’s Vitruvius Scoticus. The drawings clearly illustrate the Palladian form of the building. The elevation was not erected exactly as shown.

The lower image is By architect Robert Hurd, and was a survey drawing executed in the 1950s while he oversaw the demolition of subsequent alterations, in an attempt to recreate the building’s 18th century appearance.

These are more pictures of Mavisbank, I think this may be a reoccurring topic on my tumblr. It’s a building with a very complex history, and I have amassed rather a lot of material on its history and development from the 1720s through to present day.

These pictures are taken from a print of an original painting I believe, and shows the building in the mid to late 1700s from across the Esk Valley, similar to the view I described in my earlier post. The Pentlants clearly visible in the background.

Mavisbank House. Built in the early 1720s for Sir John Clerk of Penicuik, by the most prominent Scottish architect of his generation William Adam. This is perhaps my favourite building and the one that fascinates me most, not only because of it’s architectural merits but partly because of its puzzling history and eventual foray into years of decay and abandonment.

Looking across Lasswade towards the majestic forms of the Pentland Hills you are afforded a tantalising glimpse of Mavisbank; nuzzled in a wooded hollow just beneath the line of the Esk Valley; only it’s pediment rising above the tree-line. It’s easily missed. This stunning view inspires the intrepid explorer within, seeking adventure, desperate to uncovering and understand this place. I have often taken friends to visit and I don’t think any of them have been disappointed, be it during a snow storm, by dusk, during a glorious summers day. I don’t think it would be a cliche to use the word ‘magical’ to describe the experience.

Set in woodland by the River Esk, it’s once pristinely managed landscape has turned wild. The silhouetted volumes of the building surrounded by Heras Fencing. There is remarkable silence that accompanies such dilapidated and disused buildings and Mavisbank is no different. It’s classical forms reminiscent of a Roman Ruin.