Description
TOWER HOUSE: 1570-79, L-plan, 69' x 41' main jamb 4-storey
(ground floor has dungeon mezzanine) and attic, wing 5-storey
and cape-house. Harled, wing retains corbelled ashlar parapet
with bartizans, upper part of main jamb has crowstepped gables,
perhaps as result of late change of plan, or perhaps as result
of repairs in 1597 following damage in 1594. Interior: main jamb
has entrance passage with groin vaulted vestibule at original
entrance on E side, main part vaulted in 2 compartments, hall
in S, guard room and dungeon over in N; circular turnpike stair
centre of S side; wing vaulted in one compartment. 1st floor; rib-vaulted solar in wing, hall remodelled as ballroom c 1830,
North Drawing Room about same date; Tulip Room and Painted Room
at 2nd and 3rd in wing have painted ceilings of 1597, Tulip Room
retains beams only.
N re-entrant angle infilled at ground and 1st floors 18th
century further 2nd and 3rd floor additions 19th century,
baronial S porch and ballroom bay window c 1850, perhaps by
A & W Reid.
WINGS: semi-elliptical rusticated arches probably c 1768,
originally open, perhaps as in-and-out gates for courtyard,
now removed; extended as fanciful symmetrical gothick
composition later 18th century, 2 single-storey wings with
3 ogee-headed windows having cross finials, dining-room (also
known as 'The Chapel') W wing, kitchen in E wing; short
screen walls with buttresses, pinnacles, gablet and gothic
arch terminate composition; W screen has dummy doocot, and
is extended by further concave-gabled screen wall into which
late mediaeval tomb recess and other fragments are incorporated.
Circa 1850 dining room S frontage rebuilt as 3-window bow,
kitchen wing raised to 2-storey with battlemented parapet, and
addition built behind E screen wall, perhaps later.
Statement of Special Interest
Built by the Hays of Errol (Perthshire). To Peter Garden of
Troup (Banffshire) 1763.
Sold 1798 to Earl Fife and 'considerably enlarged' for his
tenant General the Hon Sir Alexander Duff.
Purchased for Mrs Grant Duff 1862, to Ainslie Douglas Ainslie
1866. Abandoned after 2nd World War, repurchased for Hays by
the Countess of Errol in 1948 and gradually restored by Captain
John Hay of Hayfield from 1951, the main work being done in
1957-59 by Leo Durnin (architectural work) and V Sozonov
(painted ceilings).
A group (items 8, 9, 9A, 10)