How A 300-Year-Old Scottish Country Estate Escaped The Wrecking Ball

(MENAFN- The Conversation) Between 1945 and 1974, Scotland lost a proportionally higher number of country houses than England - 175 of these stately formerly aristocratic homes (think Downton Abbey) were demolished, according to Country Life magazine in August 1979.

It noted that despite recent interventions to support them, several grand houses in Scotland continued to be threatened by the wrecking ball.

In my ongoing research and in a podcast for Scottish History Out of Order , I have looked into how the fortunes of the buildings often mirrored those of the families themselves. Their vast wealth from land holdings were hit hard, especially by heavy taxation that began in the period after the First World War .

This resulted in a large-scale liquidation of many stately residences that dotted the countryside on the British Isles. Many were demolished and others sold. A few lived on as residences - physical reminders of the once-mighty power of the families who lived there.

Hever Castle near Kent in the U.K. is an example of the former grand estate houses owned by powerful families that dot the British countryside. It was once the seat of the Boleyn family and was built in the 1400s. (Yanny Mishchuk/Unsplash) Duff House defies demolition

But in remote northeastern Scotland, there was an exception to the rule.

The construction of Duff House, an aristocratic residence for Lord Braco (later the first Earl of Fife), began in 1735 . Since then, it has lived many lives and defied demolition. And its many stories reveal a great deal about the precarious identity of a former illustrious stately home.

The house's first public life was as a gift. In 1906, the Duke and Duchess of Fife (a royal princess as the eldest daughter of King Edward VII ), offered it to the nearby burghs of Banff and Macduff.

The Duke and Duchess of Fife circa 1911. (Wikimedia Commons), CC BY

Not long after the two burghs received the gift, they began to worry about its costly upkeep. In fact, the duke's representative in 1907 offered to take back the property if it were a burden for the burghs.

Community officials insisted they wished to keep Duff House. But a use had to be found that imposed no costs to community residents. A few options were weighed: A hotel? Or, even better, a hydropathic establishment, known as a“hydro,” a popular form of hotel that attracted well-heeled patrons to participate in a strict regime of water-based“treatments?” Patrons could imagine themselves as lords and ladies of the manor for a few days, at least.

This is when Duff House's public life began - not as a hydro in the end, but as an opulent hotel.

Tepid demand

Demand was underwhelming. Distant from urban centres and markets and based in a sprawling one-time private home that required extensive adaptations, a hotel was a costly undertaking. In fact, just as the (much more successful) golf course on the grounds opened , Duff House Hotel was entering into a series of loss-making years.

It ultimately led the hotel company to exit and a new business to emerge: a sanatorium for the treatment of gastric illnesses . Unlike the hotel, it seems to have attracted stable and even growing patronage, even through the First World War.

Had Duff House finally found a profitable purpose? At the end of the war, the sanatorium moved to North Wales to be closer to its main clientele, leaving people to ask what was becoming a familiar question: what was to be done with Duff House?

The Second World War

The 1920s and '30s brought a few efforts to revive the building as a hotel, albeit on a much more modest scale. Those efforts, like the hotel ventures before them, failed.

The Second World War saw the state requisition of private property on a massive scale as the home front was mobilized in support of the conflict . Large country estates, in public and private hands, offered expansive grounds and large buildings that were adapted for a variety of uses, including hospitals and sites for convalescence.

Britain's King George VI, second left, and his wife Elizabeth pose with some of the rescue workers as they clear debris at Buckingham Palace in London in September 1940 after a German air raid. (AP Photo)

Many properties like Duff House were enlisted in the war effort. Initially used to detain German prisoners-of-war (during which a German bomb fell on the building and killed several Germans held there) , Duff House subsequently served as a barracks for British, Polish and Norwegian soldiers.

The house's wartime role ended with the conflict. It fell derelict, with Scots Magazine calling it in July 1949 a“decomposing white elephant.” It had come a long way from the halcyon days in which a royal princess called it home.

Preservationist groups lobbied the government to intervene: would it not be appropriate, they asked, to designate it a site of historical and architectural importance? The response was yes. But formally recognizing the building's significance underscored the longtime dilemma: how to make it affordably accessible and maintained?

Costly repairs

In the 1950s, the Crown assumed ownership of the house amid pressure to improve its condition despite the high costs of doing so.

The late 1950s and '60s brought about new discussions and debates over the property's future: A private residence (perhaps even for foreign royals)? Local government offices? An archive? A site for temporary record storage? An overseas club or a hotel (again)? Perhaps even flats or offices?

By the mid-1970s, a decision was taken that it be used exclusively for public purposes. Duff House was to become a landmark public site, at considerable cost.

During the '70s, the house inched toward reopening its interior to the public after a period of repair and preservation that lasted more than two decades.

As it operates today - a country house gallery operated by Historic Environment Scotland in partnership with other organizations - Duff House offers visitors insights into the opulent life of an aristocratic home .

Unearthing Duff House's past

There are faint echoes of its many other more recent lives: Polish writing on some of the walls, a wall painting of a Norwegian flag and evidence of interior adaptations.

They are critical parts of its past, though they are less visible to the eye than the elegant interior décor.

It takes some imagination to conjure the former derelict building, or a barracks, but Historic Environment Scotland is working to unearth them and feature them alongside the opulent draperies and fine furniture.

Duff House's history is a reminder that not all country homes faced the same 20th-century fate.

For all its trials and incarnations, from failed business to barracks to dereliction and now revival, Duff House still managed to escape the wrecking balls that claimed many similar buildings in a century that was as unkind to country houses as it was to the titled owners whose wealth declined with them.

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