An introduction to Lansine House and estate

Introduction

This is a short study of the history of the inhabitants, the house and its estate at Lansine House. Although the house and estate are also called Lanfine, the first owner called it Lansine, and this small introduction to the house and estate respects his habit.

It was designed and built to be a place of business, education and relaxation. This countryseat lies in a valley of the river Irvine, in a quiet part of eastern Ayrshire, in western Scotland. Although an inspiration for local people in nearby towns and villages Galston, Darvel and Newmilns, Lansine House's importance to Ayrshire, and Scotland, is a well-kept secret.

For over two hundred years the estate and house has been a family home and place of work for those who lived on the estate. A recent owner, Lord Rotherwick, told me that it " was an important house to my family; my father was born there and my siblings and I spent much of our holidays there.^[1]" Lansine House was an important place not only for its inhabitants, but also for the people of eastern Ayrshire, great Scottish cities like Glasgow and Edinburgh, as well as merchants who went abroad to Canada, and elsewhere.

Family History - the legacy of John Brown of Lansine

A published history of the estate at Lansine records that it was initially first owned by the Church. This was very common in medieval Scotland. In 1489 the Chaplain of Galston, John Charteris, acquired it^[2]. The Reformation in Scotland led to Church land being given to people who were not in the Catholic Church. The estate passed hands from the Chaplain to the Lockhart family, which had been supporters of the recent reforms. The land rested untouched until the late eighteenth century, when John Brown bought four hundred acres of it in 1769 from the Hume family^[3].

Brown was a banker, merchant and magistrate from Glasgow. He ran a bank there with his business partner Robert Carrick. The city was home to tobacco merchants who set up merchant banks. The Thistle Bank, the Ship and Arms Bank and the Merchants Bank were all based there^[4]. Brown and Carrick's bank (Carrick, Brown and Co) was among the city's private merchant banks. It could afford to give loans to important men such as Sir John Stuart of Castlemilk, Bart^[5].  Brown himself knew the Thistle Bank well. Bankers and merchants often became magistrates. An early example of his influence in the city was the help he gave in 1763 as a patron of Hutcheson's Hospital^[6].

As both a banker and magistrate Brown knew some of the wealthiest and most important bankers of his time, who were also influential politicians. He wrote to men such as Sir William Forbes, David Steuart, Robert Allan and Sir Adam Ferguson in Edinburgh^[7]. They would have known John Brown of Lansine as an important man.

Although it was entirely typical for rich men from the city to want a country retreat, and rural estate to manage, Brown was also making a connection with his own family history when he bought the land. Born in 1729, John was the son of Nicol Brown of Newmilns (1697-1739) and Marion Campbell of Waterhaughs^[8]. Both his father and mother had land near Lansine. Soon after this purchase at Lansine John also bought Waterhaughs. With his father coming from the nearby market town of Newmilns and mother from Waterhaughs, Brown's purchase of the Lansine estate celebrated his family history and pedigree in Ayrshire. He promptly set about building a house to promote both his, and his family's, fortune, and social standing.

For centuries it had been fashionable for rich men in Scotland to have both a country house, and town house. In the 1770's, Ayrshire had many new great houses built in it. Famous architects like Robert Adam came to the county, and planned out houses and estates. Some examples still stand: Caldwell House (1771-1173), Auchencruive House (1778), Culzean House (1777 - 1792), and Dalquharran House (1782) are all Adam houses in Ayrshire^[9]. Of these Culzean is the most famous, but they all show Adam's "castle style". They represent a small amount of the architect's work on the west coast of Scotland; and, there were many other well known Scottish architects working in Ayrshire and western Scotland at the same time.

John Brown did his business in Glasgow at his bank, the council's chambers, and from his house at Balls Wynd^[10]. He could probably be found with tobacco and textile merchants, and it is no surprise that the Brown family were involved in the planning and building of the Tontine Society's Hall in Glasgow during the 1780's, which included a merchants' exchange, and sample rooms to display goods for import and export.

However, Lansine House and estate were more than summer retreats. They were places of work too. The newly acquired estate and house were symbols of John Brown's Ayrshire roots as well as his importance in Glasgow, and Scotland. The new house was both typically Scottish and modern at this time. Often, the decision to build and develop an estate was called "improvement". During John Brown's life, Scotland became a country, which believed in economic and cultural "improvement". The eighteenth century is called the " British Age of the Enlightenment". Scotland played a very important part in it. Everyone who saw Lansine House would have seen it as a part of a better Scotland.

From the countryside the Glasgow banker and magistrate could learn about the harvests and prices of corn, which affected urban life and city developments. Brown could also control the new turnpike roads, bridges, ports and harbours, which were being constructed to help trade. Other Ayrshire men and bankers like Sir James Hunter Blair (partner of Sir William Forbes in Sir William Forbes, James Hunter and Company, Edinburgh) made sure that he knew about the planning and building of Port Patrick and communication with Stranraer.

Brown had similar interests. The local textile industry needed investment and support. Either directly, through the house and estate, or indirectly, through banking loans and supporting local businesses, Brown kept builders, coachmen and weavers in work. John Brown's improvements were made to impress both local people and visitors, encourage economic development, and to be passed onto the next generations of the family.

After his death in 1802 John Brown's estates were passed to his son, Nicol Brown. He followed his father's ways, and Lansine continued to become bigger and more sophisticated. Thomas Brown was the next important man to run the house. Thomas was a medical doctor and found fame in Glasgow and Scotland - not least for his collection of minerals, which he had begun after 1815 on the Lansine and Waterhaughs estates. However, he sold the house in 1852 for the vast sum of £21,050^[11].

Lord Rotherwick was the next significant owner of the house and the 10,000acre estate, which the Browns had developed. Throughout the twentieth century the family took on the work needed to run the house and the estate. Between 1911 and 1917 plans were made to alter and develop the house. This was the first major work to be done to the house since John Brown had entered its doors and walked inside to claim his home and estate some one hundred and forty years beforehand.

Quite what its future is no one can predict. However, it is clear from a brief survey of its family history that Lansine has always been a place of business and work for important Scottish bankers, and noblemen. It is a stately home with a proud history. There can be no doubt that it was designed and built to impress people. Today, it deserves to be be treated with great respect and care. Since 1971 the United Kingdom's government has protected the building for being of outstanding architectural interest and quality. No doubt, John Brown is smiling and seeing a good return for his investment.

Architectural History

Lansine House had some grand noble neighbours. The Marquess of Loudon and the Duke of Portland were nearby, with castles, estates and properties. John Brown's new house was intended to make a good impression. The design was modern and fashionable.

It is the north front of the house, which was meant to welcome visitors and be the first thing they saw. It is the biggest part of the house, which follows a T shape, with the stables and services placed at the back. The most striking feature of the north front is the double bow windows, which flank the porticoed entrance. Like the wings of the house, the bows are given two stories of windows.

Above, at the roof  line, a balustrade runs along to emphasise the grandeur of the house, and give both balance and lustre to the whole design. Six small flats, called "garrets" appear in the hipped roof, and face out onto the parterre, and the landscaped gardens ahead. The servants of the house would have been expected to live in these.

Joining the balustrade are carved stone parapet urns. They also make the front look grand. The bows, doors and roofline were meant to impress the onlooker with their scale, and the skill of the design, and craftsmanship, which took rough rusticated blocks of stone and made them into the house's walls.

These parts of the house show Lansine to be a typical 18th century country seat. The bow windows serve not only to give light and shape to the house. They also signify the design's pedigree. Just as Robert Adam was planning out "castle" houses in Ayrshire, the two bows at the centre of the house recalled Scottish Renaissance houses from centuries beforehand, such as Callender House in Stirlingshire, which was modernised in the 1780's. Brown had selected a plan, which was fashionable for Ayrshire, and Scotland.

The bow windows were also fashionable in cities. Robert Adam's eldest brother John had designed "bow flats" in Edinburgh for Adam Square. The fact that Brown knew that city's bankers well meant that he probably went there on business or knew of the city's buildings. Adam Square was designed in the 1750's, and the New Town was being planned and built from the 1760's onwards.

This was the largest urban building project in Scotland, and attracted a lot of attention and new designs for houses. These included bow flats. In contrast, the stormont windows were very typical of urban tenements and flats. Stormont windows are windows in the roof's space. They were for flats, and helped chimney cleaners get onto the roof.  The balustrade and urns above them are there to notify the house's status as a wealthy man's home and a country house.

At Lansine, the bow front also pronounces that Brown knew and copied the modern fashions for Scottish urban architecture too. It is not improbable that he took advice from architects. Robert Adam was not the only professional designer who came from Edinburgh to Ayrshire or Glasgow to work. Many New Town architects did, including Robert Robinson, John Baxter junior, James Craig and Alex Steven. It is possible that one called on Mr Brown in Glasgow to discuss ideas for his new house.

However, the name of the man who built the house is known. A year after Brown bought the Lansine estate he began to set about building his house.  In 1770 Brown began payments for the house^[12]. These showed that the building followed normal working practices - building work carried on in the summer (six masons hired in July 1770 and 34 carts of  lime came for them a year later), and supplies were built up in winter, when no work commenced ( nails, and wood " for roof, floors", which cost £94-9-6).

The wood orders continued into 1772, which shows that Lansine's structure took at least two years to complete from laying the foundations to slowly building a way up to the roof. The man in charge of building operations was a local mason called James Armour from Mauchline.

He was a well-respected member of the local community. In 1766 he planned and built the new church at Dalmellington, Ayrshire^[13]. Lansine House was probably the next big job he did after the church was completed.

However, to digress a little, Armour is not best known as the builder of Dalmellington or Lansine House even, but as the father of Jean Amour - poet Robert Burns' wife. Having no doubt done his reputation no harm through the building of Lansine by the 1780's there are accounts of his opposition to Burns's relationship with his daughter. He refused to recognise the couple's love, and stopped their marriage, but he could not stop Jean bearing the poet's children. Nevertheless, Burns himself wrote that James Armour was his father in law, and a "pretty considerable Architect in Ayrshire^[14]". There can be no doubt that the poet knew Lansine House was by James Armour. Indeed, he probably saw and visited it for it was right in the heart of his country - near Loudon, Newmilns Parish Church and Manse, and Galston about which he wrote "Holy Fair." If Burns had written a poem about Lansine he may have won James Armour over, but the poet's powers of persuasion were for Jean alone.

James Armour was the supervisor of the work team Brown assembled to build the house. This team would have consisted of masons, carpenters, glaziers, slaters, painters, plasterers, smiths and labourers, carters and quarrymen as well as merchants supplying the men with the materials they needed. Building a new house was a large and difficult operation.

Brown recorded that Armour drew out the plan of the house in February 1772^[15]: this settled the house's dimensions. The fact that Brown noted that "when Armour draws out the Plan" may note that the mason was not so much the architect, but the man contracted to build the house.

Brown and Armour agreed the planning and measurements for the passages, stairs, Dining Room, Drawing room and roof. "For uniformity" the Dining room was to have two windows and one blind one to match the three windows on the other side, and the Drawing Room was also to have three windows too, with one "shut up". The principle of symmetry and order was important for these modern houses. Up in the roof, Mr Armour was to build a square, hipped structure, for which he asked for additional supplies of wood for joisting and flooring.

By November 1772 Brown was able to describe the house to Edinburgh Insurer Robert Allan. He valued the house at £300 and described it thus:

"£300 on my house in Lansine in the Parish of Galston, County of Air. The house is a substantial stone house ...in the inside with brick with a slate roof consisting of a cellar below Ground, two stories and garrets, and is just now finishing. The first story or say Ground story is to be finished at present, but the floor of the upper story is to be laid on without nailing and may lay in that condition for some time possibly years.......^[16]"

The reason for why Brown halted building and left the upper stories of the house, where the Dining and Drawing Rooms and other public rooms were, unfinished, was simple - the Ayr Bank Crash of that year. 1772 was a black year for Scottish banking and building. Brown was caught out as a banker and house builder and was trying to save himself. He was not the only man who lived in the kitchens because he could not afford to fit out the rest of his new house. Over in Edinburgh's New Town, advocate Andrew Crosbie, living in St Andrew's Square, was doing the same thing.

Brown survived that bad year. He went on to complete his house. Although there are no accounts for plasterers, glaziers, smith, painters and upholsterers to give the house fashionable fixtures, fittings, and colours there is evidence that Brown had moved into the upper stories, which had been designed for his use and pleasure. In 1775 he paid for the nursery garden, household furniture, and house and valued his house at £350 and estate at £2560^[17]. Four years later he purchased a "large Mahogany table, tea table, eight chairs wt scaller botoms, two elbow chairs, kitchen chimney, one lanthorn, two Bedroom chimneys, three Brass candlesticks^[18]". This meant that he was building fireplaces, installing lighting (lantern and candlesticks), and moving in furniture for the upper stories. With the bedrooms now in use, by 1779, Lansine was finally a home for the Brown family. The order for a Bristol made dinner service confirm that the Browns were moving in^[19].

There was still work to be done. In 1780 Brown told his insurer Allan that Lansine was " not all furnished^[20]" still. In 1782, " my slater" in Galston, John Hutcheson, worked for Brown at the house. He ordered twenty thousand slates to be sent from the island slate quarry of Easdale ( near Oban, western Scotland). The cargo was then to be sent to Irvine. From there the slates were moved to the house^[21]. Meanwhile, Robert Hamilton delivered stone to the house for more building to take place^[22].

Quite what this building work was for is not noted. But, there is evidence that the Brown family took an interest in art and literature. It is likely that John Brown would have been like many Gentlemen of his time and collected books and art for a library and gallery inside his home. There are lists of prints he bought from the Foulis Printing House, Glasgow in 1780; including, copies of Le Brun's paintings, Venus and Cupid and many others.  He was also kept informed about the artistic prints being sent out to Montreal, Canada in trade, which combined with the book trade that was already running between Scotland and that country. Later, in 1799, John Brown of Lansine commissioned the famous Edinburgh portrait painter Henry Raeburn to paint him - no doubt for the glory of the house he had completed, although he told the painter, " I have but small spaces to occupy in my house in the Country I must have some regard to the size of the Painting^[23]" as Raeburn envisaged another huge romantic depiction of his wealthy, successful sitter and his seat in the heart of Burns's courting country.

This portrait sealed the 18th century architectural history of the house. There are no accounts for Brown's descendants pulling it down and starting again in another style. Lansine House stands as a well-built country house, which in design followed the tastes of both Ayrshire and Scotland's cities between the 1750's and 1770's. Brown wanted to be seen as a man belonging to the leading ranks of Ayrshire and Glasgow society, and his tastes in art and architecture followed this aim without lending itself to opulence and arrogance, and yet with a library and good art collection for education, and amusement.

It was not until the twentieth century that the next plans were draughted for extensive building at the house. Between 1913 and 1917 Lord Rotherwick hired architect James Kennedy Hunter to survey and propose alterations^[24]. The draughtsman drew the house as it appeared in 1911, and then proposed changes five years later. These affected both the house and its gardens, with new terraces, roses and sunken gardens being added. However, even Hunter and Rotherwick had no real intention of radically altering Brown's northern front, or the overall plan of the house. In this respect, Lansine House's architectural history is best understood through its eighteenth century past, and its first intentions to promote the family and its newly acquired estates in eastern Ayrshire.

The estates

John Brown looked to develop the land around the house. In this way, he created the Lansine estate. Like building the house, this was not done easily. However, the legacy he left the Brown family enabled others to create something really special. The grounds are, without doubt, of outstanding educational and recreational value.

The first records of John Brown's attempts to protect and promote his interests in this land belong to his letter books. In April 1774^[25] he wrote to Mr. William Smith of Alderstocks about the flooding which had taken placed from the river Irvine. It came onto the eastern half of Lansine estate, and Brown believed Smith could have prevented it, because of Smith's plantings on the riverbank.

Soon the road to Lansine was impassable. Despite repeated requests for a remedy to this problem

it continued to happen. By 1777 Ayrshire lawyer and famed companion of Samuel Johnson, James Boswell, himself an Ayrshire laird like Smith and Brown, was involved^[26]. This is because Brown took Smith to court. The case was finally settled in 1780 at the Court of Session in Edinburgh. Boswell represented Smith.

In 1779 Brown himself was planting trees in the estate^[27]. This was common enough practice. Nearby, the fourth Earl of Loudon had planted many, many trees, which had been imported from America. This practice was believed to improve the estate - providing fuel and building materials. After 1802 Nicol Brown continued to plant trees. He created Lansine Woods^[28]. Later, after 1829, another owner of the house and estate, Thomas Brown, planted many exotic trees and plants. Large areas of the estate were given over to woodlands. This Thomas Brown also created great gardens and greenhouses.

Thomas Brown was an academic. He was Professor of Botany at Glasgow University^[29]. The Lansine woods, and gardens were a natural part of his study. He probably found inspiration to become a successful scientist by growing up at Lansine, and playing in the woods and seeing the new plants grow.

However, the Professor also discovered that his estate had rich mineral wealth. Although the usual mineral wealth of Ayrshire was coal what Brown found was among the greatest collections of minerals and fossils in Scotland. Today, the finds are called the "Lanfine Collection" and "Waterhaughs Collection"^[30]. Over five thousand minerals and fifteen hundred fossils were found. Today, there is still a collection to be seen and studied at Edinburgh University's Geology Department, and another collection at Glasgow University. By the mid nineteenth century Lansine was a famous place of study for established academics and students. Indeed, Glasgow University still helps to provide money for students to work through "Lanfine Bursaries". The house and estate can be seen as a natural, and nationally important, home of study and business.

After studying hard, the estate also provided relaxation. As with all good eighteenth and nineteenth century grounds there was hunting and fishing.  The woodlands were decorated with enchanting walks, seats, follies and miniature gardens. There are also splendid avenues and roads to three gatehouses at Darvel and Newmilns, and a riverside track by the Irvine, and bridges over it too. All these things show the estate encouraged visitors to explore and enjoy Lansine.

By the 1850's there were ten thousand acres in the estate compared to the four hundred John Brown had bought in 1769 - the Brown family had completed the house and extended its lands Just as the estate impressed visitors, it also kept many people in work. Local men from Galston, such as Alexander Lawrie^[31], the Overseer, and elsewhere found employment as wood cutters, builders, gardeners and servants.

The Ayrshire people, Scottish bankers, academics and students have benefited from Lansine House and estate. Although the countryside around them are probably best remembered for being the homeland poet Robert Burns knew, it is a fact that Lansine also belongs to this rich landscape. Once, the acquaintance has been made, Lansine is impossible to forget. The place for business, education and recreation that the Brown family had created lives on into another century.