Culzean: what do the ledgers tell us?

ABSTRACT

Country houses are as much storytelling houses as storehouses of great collections. Culzean Castle was built on earlier foundations in the late eighteenth century to designs largely by Robert Adam by the 9th earl of Cassillis who bankrupted himself in the process. It was inherited by a wealthy distant American relative and completed by his son the first marquess of Ailsa. This article describes how the author located and interpreted the estate records to help tell a wholly different narrative than that provided at the time by the National Trust for Scotland which now owns the castle. Its focus is on the use of financial records to set properties, such as Culzean, in the wider context of their surrounding estate and the income that was needed to support them. Financial records and associated rentals are very bulky and little used. As a result they are vulnerable if held on deposit at a time of financial stringency and declining visitor numbers.

KEYWORDS:

• Estate accounts
• interpretation
• heritage attractions
• visitors

Acknowledgements

Michael Moss would like to thank the Marquess of Ailsa, Mike Anson, chair of the Business Archives Council, Caroline Dakers, Crispin Powell, archivist to the Duke of Buccleuch, Chris Savage, the factor on the Cassillis & Culzean Estate, Jennifer Roach at Ayrshire Archives Christopher Ridgway, the curator at Castle Howard, and Annie Tindley of the University of Newcastle.

Notes

1. Harris, The Genius of Robert Adam, 316.

2. Ridgway, “Making and Meaning” and “Country House Collections.”

3. Waterfield, “Country House.” Attingham Trust, http://www.attinghamtrust.org/about-us/about-attingham/.

4. Nurick, “Heritage and Tourism,” 37.

5. Staiff, Re-Imagining Heritage, chapter 5 and 168.

6. Waterfield, op. cit.

7. Moss, The Magnificent Castle.

8. The National Archives, Manuscript reference number ADM 51 Admiralty Captains’ Logs.

9. Buckland, Nature.

10. Moss, op. cit., 150.

11. Castle Kennedy, http://castlekennedygardens.com/.

12. Maybole Castle, https://www.buildingsatrisk.org.uk/details/911348.

13. Moss, op. cit., 227.

14. Ibid. 228–29.

15. Cassillis House, http://www.maybole.org/places/cassillis/house.htm.

16. House of Dun, https://www.nts.org.uk/visit/places/house-of-dun.

17. Moss, op. cit., 160.

18. Ayrshire Archives, http://www.ayrshirearchives.org.uk/.

19. Cassillis & Culzean Estate office, Jameston, Maidens, Ayrshire KA26 9NF.

20. Rees, Reilly and Tindley, The Land Agent 1700–1920.

21. Beardmore, King and Monks, The Land Agent in Britain – Past, Present and Future.

22. Rees, Reilly and Tindley, op. cit., 1.

23. Trollope, The Eustace Diamonds, chapter XXII.

24. Laurence, The Duty and Office.

25. National Records of Scotland (NRS), GD84.

26. Previts and Bricker, Seekers of Truth, 142–3.

27. Rees, Reilly and Tindley, op. cit., 1–2.

28. Bonnyman, The Third Duke, 85.

29. Richards, The Leviathan.

30. Acts of Parliament, 1835.

31. NRS, “Research Guides.”

32. Sandford, A Treatise.

33. Habakkuk, Marriage, 49.

34. Laurence, op. cit., 97.

35. Moss, Core Business Records, 90–93.

36. Kelly, Elements of Book-Keeping, 7.

37. Moss, The Magnificent Castle, 226–7.

38. Boyns, Boyns and Edwards, Historical Accounting Records and Edwards and Walker, The Routledge Companion.

39. Massey, “Places,” 182–92.

40. Moss, The Magnificent Castle, 170–1.

41. Hiskey, “Archives.”

42. Moss, The Magnificent Castle, 168.

43. Ibid., 172.

44. Ibid., 203–8.

45. Ibid., 198.

46. Ibid., 234.

47. Campbell, Owners and Occupiers.

48. Cannadine, The Decline and Fall.

49. Moss, The Magnificent Castle, 173.

50. Ibid., 244.

51. Beckert, Imagined Futures.

52. Beardmore, King and Monks, op. cit., 2.

53. Moss, “From Cannon to Steam.”

54. Library and Archives of Canada, GLAM summit.

55. Arthur, “Exhibiting History.”