Duddingston House is an 18th-century mansion in

Edinburgh Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. The city is located in southeast Scotland and is bounded to the north by the Firth of Forth and to the south by the Pentland Hills. Edinburgh ...

Scotland Scotland is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It contains nearly one-third of the United Kingdom's land area, consisting of the northern part of the island of Great Britain and more than 790 adjac ...

, located south-east of the village of

Duddingston Duddingston is an affluent, historic village in the east of Edinburgh, Scotland, next to Holyrood Park.It is a conservation area, not to be confused with the rest of Duddingston, which stretches down towards Portobello. Duddingston Village bo ...

. It was built in the 1760s for

James Hamilton, 8th Earl of Abercorn James Hamilton, 8th Earl of Abercorn Privy Council of Ireland, PC (Ire) (22 October 1712 – 9 October 1789), styled Lord Paisley from 1734 to 1736, was an Anglo-Irish peer. He inherited large estates in Ireland, where he built a mansion, and re ...

, and was designed by

Sir William Chambers __NOTOC__ Sir William Chambers (23 February 1723 – 10 March 1796) was a Swedish-British architect. Among his best-known works are Somerset House, the Gold State Coach and the pagoda at Kew. Chambers was a founder member of the Royal Academy. ...

. It is now protected as a category A

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Hi ...

, and the grounds of the house are included in the

Inventory of Gardens and Designed Landscapes in Scotland The ''Inventory of Gardens and Designed Landscapes in Scotland'' is a listing of gardens and designed landscapes of national artistic and/or historical significance, in Scotland. The Inventory was originally compiled in 1987, although it is a cont ...

, the national listing of significant gardens.

History

The lands of Duddingston were purchased by

(1712–1789), in 1745 from the

Duke of Argyll Duke of Argyll () is a title created in the peerage of Scotland in 1701 and in the peerage of the United Kingdom in 1892. The earls, marquesses, and dukes of Argyll were for several centuries among the most powerful noble families in Scotlan ...

. During the

Jacobite rising of 1745 The Jacobite rising of 1745 was an attempt by Charles Edward Stuart to regain the Monarchy of Great Britain, British throne for his father, James Francis Edward Stuart. It took place during the War of the Austrian Succession, when the bulk of t ...

Bonnie Prince Charlie Charles Edward Louis John Sylvester Maria Casimir Stuart (31 December 1720 – 30 January 1788) was the elder son of James Francis Edward Stuart, making him the grandson of James VII and II, and the Stuart claimant to the thrones of England, ...

's cavalry camped in the park, before the

Battle of Prestonpans The Battle of Prestonpans, also known as the Battle of Gladsmuir, was fought on 21 September 1745, near Prestonpans, in East Lothian, the first significant engagement of the Jacobite rising of 1745. Jacobitism, Jacobite forces, led by the Stua ...

. In 1760, Lord Abercorn commissioned

(1723–1796) to design a modest new house, which was constructed between 1763 and 1768. The total cost of the house and pleasure grounds, laid out by Robert Robinson in the style of

Capability Brown Lancelot "Capability" Brown (born c. 1715–16, baptised 30 August 1716 – 6 February 1783) was an English gardener and landscape architect, a notable figure in the history of the English landscape garden style. Unlike other architects ...

, was around £30,000. After Lord Abercorn's death in 1789, the estate passed to his heirs but the house was let. Its tenants were aristocratic including

Francis Rawdon-Hastings, 1st Marquess of Hastings Francis Edward Rawdon-Hastings, 1st Marquess of Hastings (9 December 175428 November 1826), styled The Honourable Francis Rawdon from birth until 1762, Lord Rawdon between 1762 and 1783, The Lord Rawdon from 1783 to 1793 and The Earl of Moira bet ...

who rented the property for many years and held an infamous garden fete in June 1805 inviting 300 of the Scottish nobility.Cassells Old and New Edinburgh vol.4 ch.37 The Benhar Coal Mining Company bought a large part of the estate in the 1880s, and in 1894 Duddingston Golf Club was developed in the grounds. Holyrood High School was built in the park in the 1960s, to the west of the house.

Restoration

By the 1950s the house was in poor repair, and in 1959 it was bought, along with , by a Mr E. Gladstone, who restored the house and opened it as a hotel in 1963. The house was again in disrepair in the 1980s. In the 1990s the stables and service block courtyard of the house were converted into town houses, while the main house was restored by the Burrell Company as offices.

References

External links

* {{Commons category-inline
Duddingston House web site
Listed houses in Scotland Category A listed buildings in Edinburgh Inventory of Gardens and Designed Landscapes Houses completed in 1768 William Chambers buildings 1768 establishments in Scotland