Tayside & East Fife Group Study Day: ‘Angus Houses’
Tayside & East Fife Group Study Day: ‘Angus Houses’
The next study day for our Tayside and East Fife Group will be in Angus.
Venue: Meet at Birnie House, Alyth, Blairgowrie, PH11 8NA
Time: 11.00 – 17.00
Cost: £15 (Study day based on use of own cars; a simple soup/sandwich lunch will be provided at Silvie.)
This study day will be led by Anne Fedele & Adam Swan and will include visits to Birnie House, Silvie House and Balintore Castle.
Birnie is a late Scottish Arts and Crafts villa designed by WTP Bryce of Orphoot Whiting & Bryce c.1922 for Edward Harry Grogan who had married Elizabeth Clayhills-Henderson in 1920; her family gifted the site in Perthshire. Grogan’s sister Meta was married to the adjacent landowner J A Wedderburn Ogilvy, who had built Silvie next door and the Grogans wanted the same architect. The Wedderburns gifted additional land for a gardener’s cottage across the county border in Angus. Grogan’s nephew Gwyn Grogan inherited and was deeply concerned about the possibility of a Cold War nuclear strike. He added an underground nuclear shelter in 1973. Birnie is now owned by a local conservation architect and his wife.
Silvie is a delightful and little known small Arts & Crafts country house meriting comparison with The Murrell. It was designed for John Andrew Wedderburn Ogilvy in 1910, following his marriage to Meta Grogan and inheriting the family estates (the baronetcy came in 1918 from a distant cousin thus: Sir John & Lady Ogilvy-Wedderburn). It was an early work by the young Ecole des Beaux-Arts trained Burnett N H Orphoot, a former assistant to R Rowand Anderson before setting up in Edinburgh. The practice was to become distinguished for its conservation work.
Balintore Castle is a Victorian Baronial shooting lodge built on a grand scale for David Lyon and designed by William Burn in 1859-60. It became disused and rapidly fell into disrepair, with collapsing floors, ceilings and stonework and was highlighted in the Buildings at Risk register. The Group last visited in 2009 soon after its acquisition by restoring owner Dr David Johnston. This visit is also a follow up to his AHSS Dundee Conservation Lecture detailing progress since in March of this year.
View the Summer/ Autumn programme and download your booking forms here
Balintore Castle by Richard Webb licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0
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