Bardrochat House, Ayrshire
Saturday 5th March 2005 - 10am.
Bardrochat is a substantial country house standing high on a hill overlooking
the Ayrshire village of Colmonell, not far from Ballantrae. The house
commands impressive views of rolling hills, wooded copses and the sudden
inclines of ancient settlements, giving way to the open sea around the stubborn symmetry of Ailsa Craig.
Sir Robert Lorimer ,who extended the house for his friend Robert Finnie McEwen in 1906, mentions plaintively that he was “up at five” to visit Bardochat, spending “ten hours on the coming and going, and forty minutes on the job”. On this occasion, R.F McEwen had commissioned him to design a new pulpit and stained glass for the village Church, together with a fine new organ.
The sale, to be held at Shapes in Edinburgh, includes fine furniture, paintings and ceramics. Alexander’s wife Cecilia, nee Princess Weikersheim, the daughter of HSH Franz Weikersheim of Austria, and Dame of the Order of Knights of Malta, has decided to include some European ceramics from her side of the family.
In addition, there are pictures by Augustus and Gwen John, Arthur Melville, George Houston, Leslie Hunter and Paul Maze; there is a fine giltwood harp, a harpsichord dedicted to R.F. Mc Ewen, an important Ferehan carpet, the Marchmont Cup – in solid silver, photographs, occasional furnishings, objets vertu – and of course, the fine Lavery portrait …
