Undiscovered Scotland

 

Dunmore Park stands close to the south bank of the River Forth a mile or so north-west of Airth. Immediately to its east, on the bank of the river and accessed from the A905, is the small village of Dunmore, developed in its current form for estate workers at Dunmore Park.

What's in a name? Dunmore Park is the name used to refer to the estate of the Earls of Dunmore. It is also the name most commonly used to refer to the grand mansion that George Murray, the 5th Earl of Dunmore, commissioned from the architect William Wilkins and built in the years between 1820 and 1825. Having said that, we've also seen the mansion referred to as Dunmore House and Dunmore Park House. Contemporary with the house was a large stable block, built a short distance to the west of it.

Perhaps the best known building on the estate is the Dunmore Pineapple. This is one of Scotland's most remarkable buildings as it is topped off by a huge stone depiction of a pineapple. It was built by the 4th Earl of Dunmore, John Murray, in 1761 as a birthday present for his wife Charlotte, in the form of a summerhouse that allowed the family to view and enjoy the walled gardens of Dunmore Park.

The pineapple does raise one question, however. Presumably the 4th Earl and his wife lived at Dunmore Park (or why else bother to build such an extravagant summerhouse there). We've never seen any reference to where they lived. The estate had been purchased by John Murray in 1754 from the Elphinstone family for £16,000. The Elphinstone's family residence had been in Elphinstone Castle, a tower house built in 1510 that was later given a two-storey extension.

One source suggests this fell out of use when the estate was purchased by John Murray, but it seems reasonable to assume that if the Murrays had a home on the estate, they would initially have used Elphinstone Castle (also later called Elphinstone Tower or Dunmore Tower), and that they continued to do so until the 5th Earl built his mansion. (Continues below image...)

 

Although the 5th Earl's mansion and the stable block was built in the early 1820s, it seems that the next major phase of development on the estate only took place in the middle years of the same century. This was when the estate village of Dunmore took form, in place of the earlier village and harbour of Elphinstone Pans. At around the same time the later additions to the original Elphinstone Castle were demolished, leaving just the original tower house. The vaulted ground floor of the tower continued in use as a mausoleum for the Murray family. A small chapel, known as St Andrew's Episcopal Church, was built close to the tower; and a parsonage was built to the east of the walled gardens. This was intended to provide homes for the chaplain and the estate factor.

The Murray family continued to live at Dunmore Park until 1911, and it remained in use as a private home until 1961. It was then taken over by a girls' school for a short time before being abandoned in 1964. In 1970 the Dunmore estate was broken up into lots and sold off. One lot, comprising the walled gardens and surrounding area, plus the Dunmore Pineapple, was purchased by the Countess of Perth, who in 1974 gave it to the National Trust for Scotland. Today the Pineapple and its garden serve as a highly unusual visitor attraction, while the building itself can be rented out from the Landmark Trust as holiday accommodation. Not far away, The Parsonage at Dunmore Park remains a private home that now also serves as an exclusive use venue for weddings and other functions.

Other elements of the estate have fared much less well. Elphinstone Tower (or Dunmore Tower) now comprises just a ground floor room and one end of the original tower, largely lost amid a dense growth of vegetation. It takes little imagination to see what remains simply collapsing the next time this part of Scotland is subject to a severe winter storm. The mausoleum in the vaulted lower room has been broken open despite a stout wooden door backed by an even stouter iron one. The stone racks for coffin storage can still be seen, as can some of the coffin woodwork, propped against a wall. The residents appear, thankfully, to have been moved to a safer and more fitting lodging. We have read that St Andrew's Church was demolished in relatively recent times. We intend to return in winter, when the entire area is not cloaked in nettles, to see if any trace of it remains on the ground.

Dunmore Park itself, or Dunmore Park House if you prefer, is in a truly sorry state. The house originally comprised a series of ranges built around a central courtyard. Partial demolition took place in 1972 that removed part of the rear range and parts of one of the side ranges, plus roofs and many of the floors throughout the building. These presumably resulted in the piles of rubble that lie behind the house. Despite this, it is possible to explore large parts of the remaining structure.

A well-worn path in from the rear leads to the cellar level, which is fascinating. Of particular interest are the extremely large wine cellars, one built around an octagonal plan with a high-security central area that could be separately closed off, presumably for the truly rare vintages. In the wine cellars, large stone and brick compartments (looking unsettlingly like the stone compartments used for coffins in the mausoleum, albeit extending back much less far) would once have housed stacked bottles of wine. The compartments still carry individual numbers, and it takes no great mathematical genius to work out that there was room for many thousands of bottles of wine down here.

The main entrance is via an impressive porte-cochère, where guests could descend from their carriages beneath the shelter of a vaulted ceiling before entering. The floors in the ground floor rooms on the front range and parts of the two side ranges are still in place, albeit with plenty of sheer drops down to cellar level to catch anyone not taking great care. There is also sufficient accumulated soil and detritus on the ground floor to provide a fertile home for growing trees. Traces of plaster on some of the walls and the grandness of the window openings give a sense of what the house was once like. Outside, you can still see carved decorations in a number of places that again give a sense of what has been lost here. Dunmore Park is a truly sad place.

Full demolition of the mansion was approved but not carried out in 1987; and over the years since there have been a number of proposals to restore Dunmore Park and the surrounding landscape. A press report in 1991 talked of a £25m golf and leisure complex, while another in 1993 talked of turning the house into a hotel. In 2006 there was a proposal to restore the house and stables and build an additional 49 houses. None of these proposals has ever come to fruition, and our own visits raise the question of whether the house is now beyond saving. Photographs taken by others dating back only a few yeards beyond out first visit, and viewable online, show the mansion with a clear surrounding space in which no trees grew. Trees are now growing right up to the walls of the house; and many are growing inside it. It can only be a matter of time before the vegetation now increasingly obscuring the outside and inside of the house simply swallows it up altogether.