History of Stobhall

In 1989 the Folly was constructed. Earlier Lord and Lady Perth had saved the Dunmore Pineapple which was derelict. Originally his intention had been to transplant the Pineapple room itself to form a Folly where the present Folly sits. Sadly this was not to be and the Pineapple was given to the National Trust for Scotland - it can be rented from the Landmark Trust. In the mid 1980’s a derelict garden house in the walled garden of the demolished Polton House near Lasswade, Midlothian, was discovered to contain interesting trompe d’oeil panelling. This presented a great opportunity and the Folly was constructed to house this panelling. The panelling dates from the late 17th century, and there is very similar panelling at Argyll’s Lodging in Stirling. It is not known who the panelling was painted by, or whether there is any significance in the central ‘O’ of the design.

Lady Perth died in 1996 and Lord Perth lived on at Stobhall until he was over 95, dying in November 2002. His son, the 18th Earl of Perth, is 70 in 2005 and it was decided that the challenge of looking after Stobhall was best suited to a younger, and perhaps less wise, man. Therefore his eldest son James Drummond, Viscount Strathallan, took on Stobhall following his grandfather’s death.

Lord and Lady Perth had done a magnificent job with Stobhall, but fifty years had passed. It also seems that in the 1950’s very little masonry work was carried out, perhaps due to the great scarcity in this trade at that time. As was then current practice, and advised by the Ministry of Works (precursor to Historic Scotland), hard non porous cement was used to re-point Stobhall. Perth sandstone is a particularly soft (bad!) stone. It is highly vulnerable to flaking and erosion and the impervious cement trapped water behind the sandstone which led to accelerated flaking when there was frost. In any case many of the window surrounds, crow-steps and chimneys had simply greatly exceeded their normal life.     >> next