Haddo, the house with the outstretched arms
July 2002
by John Doran
Ishbel Marjoribanks was unimpressed. Her new husband, John Campbell Gordon, 7th Earl of Aberdeen, had waited for nigh on seven months before bringing her to his ancestral home at Haddo. He had hoped that kind June weather would enhance the Palladian mansion that William Adam, the most respected Scottish architect of the 18th century, had designed. Ishbel was not one to hide her feelings; “Why have you brought me to the horrible house?” she is reported to have demanded.
That reaction was understandable, suggests Mary Welfare, an adopted daughter of the fourth Marquis of Aberdeen and Temair, in her book, Growing up at Haddo. “The climate was unfailingly harsh; Haddo, lying in a dip of sour, mossy land, looked up to a horizon enclosed on all sides by plantations of depressingly dark conifers.”
One hundred and twenty-odd years on, the scene is more welcoming. Lit by sharp spring sunshine, the graceful mansion rests like a jewel in the setting designed by the Aberdeen artist, James Giles, in the early 19th century. His drives and walks, woodlands and a deer park are still here. His ornamental lake is still home to a rich variety of wildlife.
“It is no longer possible to see the distinction of Adam’s Haddo as later alterations have marred its clarity, though increased its convenience,” says Christopher Hartley in the National Trust for Scotland’s guidebook to the property. That said, it does not take too much imagination to see that the original house must have puzzled, not to say startled, many neighbouring lairds. Without towers and turrets, battlements and barmkin, it is more English country house than a Scottish fortress.
Craig Ferguson, the architectural historian who manages the property for the National Trust for Scotland, enthuses about a superb house in size and quality. “Depending on my mood I find different things magical…,” he says.
Facing the Challenge: Craig Ferguson, an architectural historian, is enthusiastic about his task of managing the house which the trust took over in 1979.
Claire Smith, the house steward, suggests it is, “an extremely important property… particularly with regard to its architectural, interior design and garden design history”.
Haddo is, however, more than a museum, says June Aberdeen, widow of David, the fourth Marquess, who was the last laird to live there. “The house with its two outstretched arms welcomes you as it has done to so many in its long and honourable history,” she writes in her introduction to the NTS guidebook. “Haddo is above all a home – a home for people, children, dogs and where friends come. It is always alive with sound and it has its own unique quality which makes everyone who comes to Haddo feel they belong.”
Ishbel Aberdeen was one who created the house we see today; she cast her net wide for a small army of architects and interior designers. Archibald Simpson was one, John Smith another; and still more were brought from Edinburgh and London; no expense was spared to turn the ‘horrible house’ into what Archie Gordon, the fifth Marquis of Aberdeen described as a tour de force of pastiche Robert Adam, a style Ishbel had known from childhood in her father’s homes.
“Some members [of the family] attribute the loss of the family’s wealth to Ishbel’s profligacy,” comments Archie Gordon in A Wild Flight of Gordons.
As I walked across the gravel forecourt to a meeting with Craig Ferguson I couldn’t help thinking about the distant generations of the family. Their colourful history goes back long before the building of the house.
John de Gordon came to the ‘desolate lands’ of Strathbogie from Berwickshire. He earned the endowment through service on the field at Bannockburn, and later in the corridors of the Vatican where he went to plead for the excommunication of Robert Bruce to be lifted. The lands were briefly forfeited to one of Edward I’s henchmen, but after a few years Sir Adam de Gordon got them back.
Writing in the biography Ishbel and the Empire, Doris French records that, a few generations later, the family split in two, “the legitimate Gordons moving on to power and position as Marquesses and then as Dukes. The other branch…fared nearly as well, acquiring vast lands and much wealth, and eventually a title as Earl of Aberdeen.”
The reverie evaporates when the stocky figure of Craig Ferguson appears, his round face lit with a welcoming smile. We settle down to talk about the challenges he and his colleagues face in managing the property which the trust took over in 1979 before he suggests we walk through the house.
The oak-lined walls, inset with scenes from Aesop’s fables, painted by the Aberdeen artist, John Russell, provide a warm reception that is a far cry from Adam’s original.
Transformed: The ante room was once the entrance hall.
Dominating the staircase is Pompeo Batoni’s portrait of George Gordon, Lord Haddo, the eldest son of the third Earl of Aberdeen.
The Ante Room was once the Entrance Hall, and the room into which visitors would step from their carriages, to Ishbel’s chagrin. Some remnants of Adam’s original can be seen in the panelling and carved overdoors.
Apart from an unusual George II silver table, inlaid with fine brass work in the style of John Channon, and ormolu lamps on brackets, from the early 19th century, the room shows how well connected was the fourth earl. Together with Sir Thomas Lawrence’s fashionable Byronic study of George himself there is Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger, Sir Robert Peel, Lord Bathhurst, Lord Castlereagh and the Duke of Wellington. There is also a marble bust of Queen Victoria, a gift from a grateful monarch.
Oddly, there is nothing to commemorate Henry Dundas, first Viscount Melville and Baron Dunira. He took George under his wing when the third Earl of Aberdeen balked at paying the fees for the lad’s education at Harrow School, and again later when the young man moved to St John’s College, Cambridge. He it was who introduced George to the likes of Pitt and Peel.
Under such influence, it’s not surprising that George should go into politics. Unfortunately, he was by all accounts ill-suited to the calling. Archie Gordon suggests he was, “too much the disdainful, sceptical scholar; his rhetoric was wretched. Apart from a fondness for actors and the theatre, and a capacity to yield unlimited passionate love upon his two wives, there was nothing the slightest bit wild about him.”
While he paid little heed to the state of the house, the earl had a keen eye for its contents. While still in Government, “he used his naval and military brothers as agents during the Napoleonic period to bring over silver and silver gilt as well as paintings,” says Archie Gordon.
Inspired by the antique glories he had seen during his Continental tour, he wanted something more than the dank peat moss that his grandfather had left to him. He turned to his long-time friend James Giles to design the policies and gardens we see today.
The old man died in 1860, weary and sad at heart at the knowledge that his son and heir, another George, showed little inclination to fulfil his responsibilities.
Yet more evidence of James Giles’ talent is to be found in landscapes on The Second Staircase, along with portraits of family members. Most notable is Lord Haddo, the eldest son and heir of ‘We Twa’. George (Doddie as he was known to the family) was always a sickly lad, tormented by epilepsy.
Forced to abandon his studies at Oxford University, Doddie drifted from delicate adolescence into precarious manhood, “aimlessly, pursuing various faddish roads to health”. When he met Florence Cockayne, the “short plain, modest but respectable” mother of a classmate, ‘We Twa’ were not concerned about the differences in social standing; they themselves had flown in the face of too many conventions to let such thoughts upset them. What did fret them was the fear that their son’s condition might be hereditary. George was told to forget about fathering a family. Fortunately Florence was 47, so there was no chance of her conceiving children.
In 1945 Doddie handed over the estate to his younger brother’s son, David, and died in 1965 at his home in Aberdeen.
Various family members and notable friends watch over the charming salon called The Square, on the second floor. Among them are the fourth Duke of Gordon and his wife, in portraits by Sir Henry Raeburn. The room is crowned by “perhaps the loveliest decorated ceiling in the house – an Adam masterpiece of great delicacy.”
In the custom of the day, the fourth Earl’s tenants gathered at the boundary of the estate on a hot June day in 1857. They had come to greet Queen Victoria, who had travelled the 60 miles from Balmoral to visit her former Prime Minister. Unsurprisingly, the elegant room in which she slept is still proudly called The Queen’s Bedroom. What does surprise is the uncharacteristically light Victorian furnishings.
The Morning Room is the second metamorphosis since William Adam first conceived it as a suite of rooms centred on a family bedroom. Today it is an elegant apartment that Lady June Aberdeen most appreciates.
The room is filled with eye-catching furniture including a satinwood cabinet that the seventh Earl gave to Ishbel. Here, too, are watercolours by Ishbel and by her tutor N.E. Green, and The Views of Balmoral, painted by the ubiquitous James Giles.
The Drawing Room resonates with the late 19th century, but as Ferguson and I walked into the room our eyes did not immediately focus on the Adam-style furniture but on Claire Smith perched atop scaffolding, cleaning the breathtaking stalactite of crystal. Like much of the furniture, the great chandelier is an important, not to say priceless artefact, but it instils no fear into the slightly-built house steward; this is what she has trained for since she left the University of Aberdeen with an honours degree in History and Politics and came to work as a seasonal senior assistant.
Conservation of the house and contents is made less challenging by support from specialist staff like surveyors, conservators and curators at the Regional and Head Office, she says.
“To complete many of the tasks satisfactorily often involves a number of hours. For instance, the chandelier has taken a total of 28 hours to complete. Deciding what has to be done needs careful planning in order to prioritise.”
Ms Smith is the first to acknowledge the contribution made by the volunteer workers who descend on the house during the winter months, but conservation requires more than elbow grease, invaluable though that is.
“We get advice on the best materials and techniques to use and all work is extensively documented to recommended museum standards,” she says.
Leaving the young lady to her task, we turn to yet another treasure trove of paintings. There’s David and Goliath by the 17th century master, Domenichino. Legend tells of it causing a ripple of awkward laughter when Ishbel asked visitors who they thought it portrayed. After a moment’s pause a questioning response came: “Could it be your Ladyship?”
There, too, is Sir William Allan’s portrait of Sir Walter Scott and his daughter in the Armoury at Abbotsford and a full length portrait of the seventh Earl’s youngest son, Archibald, who was killed in one of the earliest motor accidents, in 1909.
Portraits by Sir Anthony Van Dyck are also there; one a Head of St Peter, the other a portrait of King Charles I and Queen Henrietta. James Giles is here too, in delightful views of Gight, home of the lawless Gordons of that ilk.
The photographs on the Regency writing table testify to the many eminent guests who’ve contributed to the more recent cultural and social life at Haddo.
Many of the most notable members of the family are waiting, along with various Stuart monarchs in the warmly-elegant Dining Room that was originally the Withdrawing Room, the Best Bedchamber and closets.
There’s the George Gordon, the first Earl, and briefly Lord Chancellor of Scotland. Despite his learning, he had a chequered career in the bear pit of Edinburgh politics.
Some might say he was the author of many of his troubles. When William and Mary came to the throne, George willfully refused to swear allegiance, a gesture that took him to an ‘apartment’ in Edinburgh Castle on a charge of lese-majeste. Fortunately the charge was dropped and he came home to concentrate on his vast estate.
There, too, is George’s son, William. He inherited the lands and title in 1720. As Lord Haddo, William eagerly involved himself in the Jacobite conspiracies dreamed up by John Erskine, 23rd Earl of Marr. He became so identified with the anti-Hanoverian cause that a warrant was issued for his arrest but Marr used his contacts within government to have it lifted.
According to Archie Gordon, in A Wild Flight of Gordons, William was, like so many second generation grandees, a ‘thumping snob’. Perhaps his only saving grace was that he was the one who commissioned William Adam to design a house which James Macaulay says (in Political Country House in Scotland 1660-1800) was “beyond the means of most lairds”.
“Throughout his life he had been prudent as well as acquisitive,” says Archie Gordon, “there had been no lashing out. From arguments with the merchants of Aberdeen over the price of meal and victuals, by bargains with powerful neighbours and the cunning exploitation of weaker ones, he had made steady progress through continuous material enlargement, and he was determined that his prosperity would not be let go. He had also bankrupted a few small neighbours by letting out loans and, by timely foreclosure, acquiring their lands.”
Anything William could do, his son George could clearly do better. For all the artist’s efforts to present a flattering image, the coldly elegant features that look out of his portrait betray the callous man he apparently was; his nickname of ‘Lord Skinflint’ was well earned. His rental system of 19-year leases was both oppressive and shortsighted. While it yielded quick returns, it stifled improvement of the land…failure to pay dues to the last farthing meant eviction.
George’s romantic involvements were as legendary as his parsimony, earning him a second nickname: ‘The Wicked Earl’.
His romantic record started in 1759, whilst on a visit to Yorkshire. During a stop-over at the Stafford Arms in Wakefield, he was so pleased with the mutton chops served for his supper that he demanded to see the cook. Thus he met Catharine Hanson, a handsome woman of 29 and immediately led her to his bedchamber. When the time came for him to return home, George could not resist the temptation to again sample the delights of the Stratford Arms.
According to J.W. Walker’s Wakefield: It’s History and its People, this time Catharine had a surprise for Lord Aberdeen. Faced with a loaded pistol and the choice of marriage or his life, George pragmatically decided the Gordons of Haddo would benefit from an infusion of English blood.
The story might have ended there but George’s appetite was insatiable. Whilst his Yorkshire countess was occupied with the births of two sons and four daughters, he continued to indulge himself in life’s simplest pleasure; Mrs Forest, the former housekeeper of his London home, was brought to the newly-acquired Cairnbulg Castle, near Fraserburgh, to deliver him a son called John; an illegitimate daughter was accommodated in the London house; yet another, unknown woman was housed at Wiscombe Park, in Devon, where she gave the Earl a son, Charles; his castle at Ellon housed ‘a lady of charm called Penelope Dering’, a friend of one of his legitimate daughters, who gave him a daughter and a son. One can be excused for concluding that George Gordon, third Earl of Aberdeen, had the constitution of a horse and the morals of an alley cat.
Flanking the bay window are the portrait of the fourth Earl of Aberdeen and the three-quarter length portrait of his friend, the actor Philip Kemble. Kemble came frequently to Haddo, sometimes to study a new part, sometimes to ‘dry out’ after an alcoholic binge. There is a granite seat in the park where he used to sit and learn his lines. “It is known as Kemble’s seat,” says Christopher Hartley, “and is still used by actors playing at Haddo.”
Above the gilded sidetable, John Campbell Gordon, seventh Earl and first Marquess of Aberdeen and Temair, looks very grand in the robes of the Order of the Thistle. Unlike his eldest brother, George, John Campbell had no intention of running away. The estate had come to him by default, following George’s disappearance to sea and the death of the attractive and gifted second son, James, who shot himself in his rooms at Cambridge, but the gentle, self-effacing seventh Earl was determined to meet his responsibilities, even though his appointments as Viceroy of Ireland and Governor-General of Canada involved an almost nomadic life.
Ishbel, who was always desperate to raise funds for her various projects, must have been frustrated by her husband’s generosity; he would lend money when there was nothing to spare.
John died in 1934, in his 87th year. Some said he was quite exhausted by the strain of finding the money to fund Ishbel’s good causes.
Below John Campbell Gordon is June, Marchioness of Aberdeen and Temair, the widow of David Gordon, the fourth Marquess, whose portrait hangs above the fireplace. Unlikely as it might sound, David and June Gordon were in some respects similar to ‘We Twa’. Both couples had causes which they forcefully pursued; both recognized the meaning of noblesse oblige. Ishbel worked tirelessly for the improvement of minds and bodies; David and June were equally evangelical in their promotion of the Haddo Choral & Operatic Society.
Eric Linklater in his booklet The Music of the North, says, “By nursing innate but unsuspected talents they have enriched their neighbourhood and all who live in it. Their eventual purpose was to present the music of Johann Sebastian Bach and Benjamin Britten, of Verdi and Vaughan Williams, and on their way – but not incidentally – they became social benefactors.”
With the merest hint of a wry smile, June Gordon remembers a time when, like Ishbel and Johnnie, she and David were sniffed at by aristocratic neighbours who suspected they had ‘gone native’.
We wander on, through The China Room that houses the exquisite dinner service with images of Canadian birds, animals, fish, wild flowers and topographical scenes. Hand-painted by members of the Women’s Association of Canada, it was presented in 1898 as a farewell gift to Ishbel by Members of the Senate and House of Commons in Canada.
It is easy to see why the Library is Craig Ferguson’s favourite room. What was once a hayloft over the stables is now lined with cedar, inlaid with ebony, richly carpeted, curtained and furnished. All combine to engender a feeling of warmth and confidence. The books – shelves upon shelves of them – encourage the feeling further.
On we go, through the Lobby outside the Premier’s Suite, where we see Archie Gordon, the 5th Marquess of Aberdeen, in a portrait by Maggie Hambling among other 20th-century paintings, including some by Archie’s close friends, Sir Cedric Morris and Lett Haines.
The Chapel, a modest, almost austere place, was the last work begun before its designer, the pre-eminent ecclesiastical architect, G.E. Street, died.
As its name suggests, The Gordon Room is filled with family memorabilia, everything from the family’s coronation robes to family-crested china, ceremonial trowels and photographs.
There are also floral paintings and ceramics by Alistair Gordon and his wife, Anne, the present Marquess and Marchioness. Both are professional artists of international standing, living in Berkshire.
Craig Ferguson’s face lights up as we come into The Giles Room. It testifies not simply to the genius of the man who created a beautiful setting for the jewel that is Haddo House, but also to a lasting friendship.
Apart from his designs for the grounds and policies at Haddo, Ferguson tells us, Giles’ largest single body of work for Lord Aberdeen was his Castles of Aberdeenshire series; 85 views largely in watercolour, pencil and wash, that took him 17 years to complete.
As Craig Ferguson guides me to the door he outlines the plans he and his colleagues have for promoting the house.
“We’ll be focussing on some of the things that the public would never really see because they’re in a cupboard or a drawer or a room that’s not open,” says Ferguson, “and of course on Sunday afternoons musicians will be playing in the house.”
As I walk out into sharp afternoon light I find myself wondering about the house’s future. Certainly the Gordons of Haddo will still be around, taking an active interest. Apart from June Aberdeen, there is Alastair, the present Marquess, his son, Alexander, Earl of Haddo, who lives on the estate, and his son, George, Viscount Forndyn.
And what of my guide, what are his feelings about service here? Craig Ferguson gives a hearty laugh. “I’m lucky because this provides all those little things that press buttons in my mind. It provides plenty of challenges and…it’s nice to come to work in such an elegant place rather than going into some office in the middle of town.”
I must confess to harbouring a feeling of envy as I turn the car towards the city.
John Doran worked in the feature film industry, latterly as a freelance film producer/director. His long-running television programme, The Electric Theatre Show, brought him to Aberdeen and he decided to stay.
This is an article from the July 2002 edition of Leopard Magazine. To read much more like this every month, see our subscription details.