Cullen House

Initial construction Set on a clifftop above the Cullen Burn, Cullen House was built by the Ogilvies of Findlater, whose seat had previously been at Findlater Castle on the coast about to the east. and is thought to have been home to Marjorie, Countess of Carrick, the mother of Robert the Bruce. On 20 March 1600, building upon some of the structure of the canons' lodgings, work was started on a large new L-plan tower house for the laird, Sir Walter Ogilvy, and his wife Dame Margaret Drummond. Extension, modification and Jacobite assault In the centuries following its initial construction, the house underwent a series of renovations, extensions and modifications. A tower was added in 1660, shortly after the third earl inherited it. The house was ransacked for a second time during the Jacobite rising of 1745. James Ogilvy, 5th Earl of Findlater had travelled with his wife to Aberdeen to meet the Duke of Cumberland who was pursuing the Jacobite Army led by Charles Edward Stuart. In their absence, a group of Stuart's supporters forced their way into the house on 8 April 1746 and ransacked it, carrying off as much as possible and destroying what could not be easily transported. Three days later, continuing his pursuit that would end at the Battle of Culloden, Cumberland arrived at the scene accompanied by Findlater to find the doors of the house forced open, the windows broken, and broken furniture and discarded papers strewn around the grounds. Findlater subsequently petitioned the British Parliament for the sum of £8,000 in compensation for the losses incurred, but it is not clear whether he ever received any payment. drew up plans for new and extensive landscaped gardens in 1789, although these were only partially executed. The only remaining building from the original village is Cullen Old Church. The house's current baronial revival appearance is largely the result of the extensive remodelling that was carried out from 1858 to 1868 by David Bryce, who worked to homogenise the disparate styles of the different parts of the building, and redesigned much of the interior. Since she spent most of her time at her home in Nassau in the Bahamas, the house was not her primary residence. The house was open to the public for part of the year in the 1960s. In 1972 it was designated a Category A listed building. Included in the sale was a collection of eighteenth-century paintings by Scottish artists working in Italy, including work by Cosmo Alexander. In 1982 the house was purchased by Kit Martin, an architectural designer who specialises in saving derelict historic buildings. He and the local architect Douglas Forrest set about repairing and restoring the structure, and together they converted it into fourteen separate private homes. On 17 June 1987, two years after the renovations had been completed, a fire broke out in the south wing which was being fitted out for new owners. Firefighters fought to contain the blaze, and although they managed to put it out within three hours, severe damage was caused to the south-east corner and the west wing. Restoration work was carried out over the course of the next two years, using photographic records and material recovered from the fire to restore the external masonry to its original appearance. Specialist joiners and plasterers were brought in to work on the interiors, but some of the building's internal features including an early seventeenth-century painted ceiling in the second salon were irreparably damaged. The subdivided house remains in use as privately owned domestic accommodation . ==Architecture==

Cullen House is a large, ornately decorated and turreted house, which was built in several stages over several centuries. It is described by the architectural historian Charles McKean as an "enormously complicated structure", and "one of the grandest houses in Scotland". Exterior The seventeenth-century L-plan tower house, which itself incorporated stonework from earlier buildings on the site, has been extended by the addition of wings to the north and south. The original seventeenth-century windows were mostly replaced with larger ones in the eighteenth century, but some of the original ones were blocked and have been retained as decorative features. At the west end, there is another extension, also baronialized in the nineteenth century, with more tourelles, a round staircase tower, and carvings of Father Time holding a scythe and flanked by figures representing Youth and Old Age. The house's east facade, again heavily baronialized, has another entrance, recessed into the centre of the north wing, also with a flamboyantly carved doorway by Goodwillie; this is very similar to its counterpart on the other side of the wing, but without the lions. To either side of the doorway are a pair of four-storey towers, one with a datestone showing 1668, and there is a square bartizan as well as three more triangular dormer heads. To the left side of the east facade is the rear of the original tower house, which has an early seventeenth-century tourelle, and another dormer head featuring a carved sun. The south facade looks onto the clifftop and the Cullen Burn below. At its right end is a staircase tower attached to the original tower house, to the left of which is a very large bow window. Left of this is a section of five bays, which is part of the eighteenth-century building work and has been little altered since, save for the addition of a single tourelle, and an elaborate staircase tower which can be seen prominently from the gorge below and is known as the Punch Bowl. Beyond the north wing is a U-plan service court, two storeys high with a bellcote on its north facade. Built in the late eighteenth century, it originally housed the kitchen and laundry, and has been converted into six apartments and an architectural studio. Interior The main house has been divided into seven separate apartments. Efforts were made during the restoration to retain as many of the building's historical features as possible, and each of the principal rooms was retained intact within one of the apartments. There is a square entrance hall in the north wing, with a fireplace decorated with blue and white Delftware tiles. Beyond this is a two-storey stair hall, with a staircase and ceiling, both by James Adam, and an elaborately carved wooden door, dated 1618, with its original key and lock. Many of the house's original public rooms retain original Victorian ceilings; others, which were damaged in the fire of 1987, have been restored or reproduced. A grand Jacobean painted ceiling, depicting the siege of Troy and bearing the royal arms of Scotland (suggesting that it predated the 1603 Union of the Crowns), was destroyed by the fire. It has been replaced by a painting of bubbles and astronauts by Robert Ochardson. ==Grounds==

The house's grounds contain several structures which are Category A listed in their own right. These include a bridge, gatehouse, and a temple. Leading off the house's west courtyard is a bridge built between 1744 and 1745 by William Adam, which crosses the gorge of the Cullen Burn. It has a single arch, with a span of and a height of , and is built of granite ashlar with rubble spandrels. The grounds include a walled garden from 1788, designed by James Playfair. There are also several estate buildings, many of which were designed by Robertson, and by his nephews Alexander and William Reid who continued his practice after his death. These include an ice house, a garden house, a laundry, and cottages for staff such as gardeners. ==Notes==