Royal
Incorporation of
Architects in
Scotland

The Scotsman Building,
elevation to North Bridge, Edinburgh. 1900.
Mechanical copy, colour
wash. SC553823

From 1999-2004 the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland, in partnership with the Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland, received £1,023,200 from the Heritage Lottery Fund for the Scottish Architects' Papers Preservation Project. This generous support followed a decade of initiatives designed to identify architects' practice records held in private hands throughout Scotland and secure them for long term preservation and public use.

A total of 195,800 drawings, photographs and manuscripts were catalogued and re-housed to archival standards. 3,000 items received conservation treatment, whilst a further 2,000 were digitally copied, making them readily available for the public to study and enjoy.

The papers, dating from the mid 19th to the late 20th century, contain valuable information about Scotland's built heritage. All types of buildings are featured: from country houses to housing schemes, from farms to factories, and from schools to shops.

This virtual exhibition explores the work of five Scottish architects and practices from the SAPPP collections - Basil Spence, James Monro, Leslie Grahame Thomson (MacDougall), Sydney Mitchell & Wilson and Dunn & Findlay. In each case the project highlighted represents an early building block in their careers - either the first major commission, as at Gribloch, or an early example of a specialist building type - be it a hotel, church or mental institution, as at the Grand Hotel in St Andrews, the Reid Memorial Church, or the Crichton Royal. Finally, the Scotsman Offices represents a career breakthrough on a grand scale which led to many commissions for respectable clients.

In addition there are several examples of how the historic drawings can be used in a practical way to support the future of the buildings themselves. At the Reid Memorial Church the drawings have informed the ongoing maintenance programme, as well as aiding the creation of a souvenir model to boost church coffers. In Dumfries, the Crichton Royal mental institution is finding new life as a university campus and architects Robert Potter & Partners have used the historic records to inform their designs. Finally, at the Scotsman Buildings in Edinburgh, the developers used the historic drawings not only to aid their conversion programme, but they have used copies of the SAPPP drawings to decorate the completed hotel.

Cataloguing and conservation work on each of the collections represented is either complete or in progress. The drawings can be studied at the RCAHMS public search room, 16 Bernard Terrace, Edinburgh and the catalogue searched using Canmore.

For further information on the project or the collections featured here please contact Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland, John Sinclair House, 16 Bernard Terrace, Edinburgh EH8 9NX. Tel: +44 (0)131 662 1456. E-mail: info@rcahms.gov.uk.

Click on an image to view the full-size version. Prints of all images can be obtained by contacting RCAHMS directly at info@rcahms.gov.uk quoting the name of the site or building, the SC number, the size and nature of each image required. A price list of services for photographs, digital images and other copies can be found under the price list page.

The Dunn & Findlay Collection of 4,182 drawings comprises the work of two practices, James B. Dunn (1861-1930) and Arthur Hugh Mottram (1886-1953). Many of the drawings in the collection cover work for housing (public and private) and commercial clients.

The Scotsman Building on Edinburgh's North Bridge (1899-1904) was the most celebrated work of James B. Dunn and James Leslie Findlay (1868-1952) and firmly established the reputation of the partnership.

The building formed part of the North Bridge redevelopment that widened the bridge and street and reduced its gradient. It was, to date, the largest building erected in Edinburgh by private enterprise, costing £500,000. The layout was designed with efficiency and convenience as its regulating factors, although this was done without sacrificing any opportunity for grandeur. Its light and spacious rooms redefined the usual preconceptions of dark and dreary printing offices. The services in the building used modern developments in conjunction with more traditional methods. For instance the sub-editors communication system comprised of both telephones and carrier pigeons whose messages were relayed through a pneumatic tube connected to the pigeon-house. The construction used the latest and most approved methods and materials, employing a steel frame and concrete and brick cladding.

The Scotsman Building is no longer a newspaper building, thus the driving force behind its design is gone. Its future new life as a hotel however, will allow the prestige of the building within the townscape to survive.

Elevation to North Bridge, Edinburgh. 1900.
Mechanical copy, colour wash.
SC553823

Elevation to North Bridge Street, Edinburgh from leasing brochure. 1902.
SC553251

The Leslie Grahame Thomson (MacDougall) Collection comprises 1,696 drawings, largely for ecclesiastical and private housing commissions by Leslie Grahame Thomson (1896-1974), renamed MacDougall in 1953. Thomson was a pupil of Robert Lorimer, set up his own practice in 1928, and from 1953-55 was President of the RIAS.

In the late 1920s William Cramb Reid bequeathed £50,000 to build a church in memory of his father, also William. The result was the Thomson-designed Reid Memorial Church (1929-33) on West Savile Terrace in Edinburgh. Along with the hall and church officer's house, the buildings form a cloister which was intended to create '... a restful and harmonious place of quiet ... where, on occasion, an outdoor service could be held'.

This Lorimerian late Gothic cruciform church is elegantly proportioned, with a well-lit elevated interior, and beautifully detailed. The stained glass windows, wrought iron detailing, symbolic oak carvings, stone pulpit and communion table were all designed by Thomson. His principal aim 'was to secure, without unnecessary ornament, a dignity in the cathedral tradition by that feeling of height and aspiration which indicates the theme ... of the Ascension'.

Following the undoubted success of the Reid Memorial Church, Thomson was commissioned to design several more churches, including the Longstone Church, Edinburgh (1953); Moncur Memorial Church, Orkney (1955) and Christ's Church, Oban (1957).

East elevation through court. 1929. Glazed linen, ink.
SC582301

Another building designed by Leslie Grahame Thomson, Srongarbh in West Linton, is featured on the 'One hundred houses for one hundred European architects of the twentieth century' Highlight page.

The Monro & Partners Collection, comprising 1,330 drawings and photographs, includes designs for houses, factories, shops and churches, mainly in the West of Scotland, by James Milne Monro (1840-1921), his son Charles Ernest Monro (1876-1945) and his grandson Geoffrey James Monro (1907-1985). A significant early client was the Little Sisters of the Poor while in the twentieth century Marks & Spencer provided much work.

One of James Milne Monro's major commissions - The Grand Hotel in St Andrews - cemented his reputation as a hotel designer. 'The Grand' occupies a dominant position in front of the world famous Old Course. The hotel is substantially higher than the surrounding buildings, including the adjoining Royal and Ancient Golf Club house. The use of red Dumfries sandstone forms a contrast with the neighbouring buildings of local, lighter-coloured sandstone. Work on the building commenced in 1893 and finished in 1899, concluding a half-century of development along The Scores, between the cliff edge and the old town.

'The Grand' was James Milne Monro's third hotel commission, but his first to be built from scratch, following his 1892 designs for extensions to the Dreadnought Hotel in Callander and Dunoon Castle. Shortly after completing 'The Grand', Monro went on to extend and refurbish hotels at Grantown-on-Spey, Oban and Stranraer.

The material in the collection can be studied at Glasgow City Archives where it is held under a charge and superintendence agreement. Further information can be found on the SAPPP Local Collections page.

The Spence Glover & Ferguson Collection totals nearly 11,000 items with drawings, photographs and slides of exhibition design, council housing, schools, universities, and churches undertaken by the practice between 1936 and 1981. The founder of the practice, Sir Basil Spence (1907-1976) was one of Britain's most popular and respected post-war architects, responsible for the award-winning design of Coventry Cathedral (1951).

Gribloch is located near the village of Kippen in Stirlingshire and was designed in 1937 by Basil Spence in association with Perry Duncan of New York. At this time Spence was a partner with Rowand Anderson Paul & Partners whom he had joined in 1935. Spence wrote of Gribloch that they were striving 'for something more of the Regency Type, freshened up to fit modern conditions'. This reflected the contemporary attitude to architecture, where the pure Functionalism of the Twenties was introduced to the architectural ideas of other historical eras.

Gribloch is laid out to take advantage of its position in the landscape. The front of the house faces North with a panoramic view over the Forth valley to the Grampian mountains. The two South-facing splayed wings, enclosing the swimming pool, look out over a tree-lined avenue, giving views to the Fintry hills. The clients' wish for sun and views informed the design of Gribloch from the start. Spence's ingenious use of the inverted F-shaped plan ensured that every opportunity was used to introduce these features into the reception rooms, staircases, and the principal bedrooms, which later came to be named after the mountains they look out on to.

Forecourt ground floor plan. c.1937.
Tracing, pencil.
SC582321

Ground floor, hall and staircase, looking South. 1984.
SC582325

Aerial perspective view of house and garden. c.1937.
Tracing, pencil.
SC582322

The Sydney Mitchell & Wilson Collection comprises over 6,000 drawings dating from c.1880 to c.1930. Arthur George Sydney Mitchell (1856-1930) set up practice in 1882, gaining steady and prestigious employment as architect to the Commercial Bank of Scotland. In 1887 his assistant, George Wilson (1845-1912), joined him as partner.

As the initial wave of Commercial Bank commissions started to dry up, the practice began to explore new markets; in the late 1880s, Mitchell became architect to the Crichton Royal Institution, an 1835 William Burn lunatic asylum set in beautifully landscaped grounds on the outskirts of Dumfries.

Over the next two decades the asylum was developed by the practice on a colony plan, with a variety of villas and hospitals strategically placed around the grounds. Accommodation was available for every level of society, and ranged from the provision of carriage and servants for the richest, to gruel and dormitories for the poorest. The great social leveler, however, was the spacious designed landscape in which the patients were encouraged to wander for the recuperation of their tortured minds.

Rutherford House was built to house female patients, and although far from being unattractive was considerably plainer in appearance than her male counterpart, Carmont, which was built to the same ground plan. Success at Crichton and on a contemporary project, New Craighouse asylum in Edinburgh, led to many further commissions for Sydney Mitchell & Wilson throughout their careers as architects to Her Majesty's Board of Lunacy.

Female Infirmary Section (now Rutherford House). 1899. West elevation.
Paper, pencil, ink, colour wash.
SC582315

Female Infirmary Section (now Rutherford House). 1899. South elevation.
Paper, pencil, ink, colour wash.
SC582316

Rutherford House, Crichton Royal Hospital. View from the south west. 1993.
SC583578

Alternative design for Female Infirmary Section (now Rutherford House). 1899. North and South elevations.
Paper, pencil, ink, colour wash.
SC582319

Alternative design for Female Infirmary Section (now Rutherford House). 1899. West elevation.
Paper, pencil, ink, colour wash.
SC582318

Alternative design for Female Infirmary Section (now Rutherford House). 1899. Ground floor plan.
Paper, pencil, ink, colour wash.
SC582313

Alternative design for Female Infirmary Section (now Rutherford House). 1899. Upper floor plan.
Paper, pencil, ink, colour wash.
SC582314