Podcast

Transcript

Three voices: male voiceover [MV]; Jackie Bird [JB]; Caroline Hirst [CH]

[MV]
Love Scotland – brought to you from the National Trust for Scotland.

[JB]
I wish my words could do justice to the beauty of my surroundings right now. I’m in the walled garden of Kellie Castle, near Pittenweem in Fife. The glorious late summer colour of the garden is overlooked by the baronial splendour of the castle itself. It’s a scene of deep peace, untroubled by contemporary life. In fact, I could have time-travelled to a date any time over the past few hundred years and my surroundings would be just about the same. And that is the wonderful consequence of protecting our heritage. We know what people built and how they lived because it’s still there to experience.

But just as our fortunes ebb and flow, so do those of buildings. Not so very long ago, this castle was a crumble away from ruin and its ultimate downfall. However, salvation was at hand, not in the shape of the National Trust for Scotland – that part of the story comes later – but at the hands of a remarkable multi-talented family who poured so much time, money and love into this place that they pretty much willed it back to life.

I’m now inside Kellie in a small room high up in the north-west tower, whose base dates back to the 14th century. If you can hear any squeaking in the distance, I’m told we’ve got some bats behind the panelling. Well, I’m not alone. Joining me is Caroline Hirst, the property manager here, who like me has fallen under the spell of Kellie and its history. Welcome to the podcast, Caroline.

[CH]
Thank you, it’s a real pleasure.

[JB]
I’m very glad you’re here, not least because of the bats! I am daunted by the scope of Kellie’s story. Give me a whistle-stop tour of the earliest origins and let’s say you stop around the mid-1800s.

[CH]
The first known mention of Kellie Castle is around about 1150 in a charter. Then, the Seward family who came up from Northumberland, had it for a number of years. The oldest part of the castle as it stands today dates to 1360 – that is the north-west tower, as we are here today. Basically, that was the first 3 floors of that tower. It was the Oliphant clan or family who had this area; it was purely for defensive reasons. They subsequently had Kellie for 250 years and developed Kellie as it stands today. It really is a remarkable building.
Between around 1573, when the east tower was built separate to the north-west tower; then they created the south-west tower between 1592 and 1606, and added all towers together by the central part, creating almost like a mansion house rather than a defensive castle as we think of a castle. That was subsequently sold to the Erskine family, who are still very much a local family in Fife. They had it for 10 generations before there wasn’t an heir available to take it on. It was then passed to the Earls of Mar and Kellie through a dispute that was held over the title and the lands. Sadly, it was then left, basically, to rack and ruin.

[JB]
How bad was it?

[CH]
The Lorimers first stumbled across it in the 1870s. Professor James Lorimer, who we’ll be hearing about shortly, he had chronic asthma and he used to come up every summer from Edinburgh. He was a professor of public law at Edinburgh University. They would come up to gain the sea air, to make him feel a lot better. They were looking for a friend for somewhere to rent in the area and they stumbled across this farm track. There are records of them coming up through the old gates up to the castle. They came across this semi-ruinous castle with the roof slightly falling in; there weren’t any windows intact. They decided to have a picnic and explore. There are records of them going round, saying ‘wow, this is incredible!’ It almost looked like something they couldn’t take on, and they were still thinking of their friend at that point.
It wasn’t until they went home and started to really think about Kellie, that they thought ‘We could make this possible’. Hence, they contacted the Earl of Mar and Kellie and had an agreement drawn up for 38 years as what they call an ‘improver tenant’. The Earl of Mar and Kellie made it wind- and water-tight, and they paid a very small sum of £25 a year to basically make this possible as a summer residence. They obviously then spent a lot of time using local craftsmen.

[JB]
Before we do that though, I think we’re under-playing the state of it. I found some memoirs of Louise, one of the daughters of James Lorimer, who said that neighbouring landowners thought they were daft for taking it on. She wrote that ‘there were great holes letting the rain and snow through the roofs; many of the floors had become unsafe; every pane of glass was broken; swallows built in the coronets on the ceilings while the ceilings themselves sagged and in some cases fell into the rooms.’ It was a project!

[CH]
It was a project, and I think that’s why at first they were thought a bit crazy to take it on. But as they thought about it, what was important about Kellie and why they made this big decision is that this property had been almost lost in a time capsule. Like a lot of properties in Scotland like this, they would often have had in the Victorian era quite a big change of interiors. What you have at Kellie is a time capsule right the way back to the 14th century to a degree in the north-west tower, and then to the 16th and 17th centuries – just sat waiting to be restored.

[JB]
Although it was in a terrible state of disrepair, it had dodged a bullet. Because the Victorians were quite keen on coming in and saying ‘let’s gut this place’ in a kind of 1960s/70s way.

[CH]
That’s right. All the previous decoration had been lost at that point. That’s why Kellie was so significant. They realised that. They were a highly educated family, highly creative and they knew what Kellie represented.

[JB]
Tell me about the family themselves.

[CH]
Professor James Lorimer was a Professor of Public Law at the University of Edinburgh, a very well-educated gentleman. He had first met his wife Hannah coming across on a boat from Leith to Fife. She was extremely seasick, and she was a lot younger; she was 16 at the time and he was 32. Unknown to him, four years later they would be married. It was a true love match; they were truly in love with one another. She was a real beauty and they had 6 children.
All of the children were influenced by their parents’ artistic interests. Certainly the 6 children, apart from James who was the eldest and became a merchant and travelled extensively – and finally died sadly in his early 40s in South Africa – the other 5 children were influenced, boys and girls. They all had the opportunities to develop their skills. Even the girls go to Edinburgh University.

[JB]
Let’s nail some dates here. It’s 1878 eventually and that’s the night the family first moved in here. And it’s still terrible, and you can see the stars through the roof! It wasn’t habitable in winter, so they came here in the summer, but then Kellie began to work its magic. When James Lorimer, the father, decided to start the renovation, he could have just got a whole load of workmen in and say ‘just do what you have to do’. But no. He decided to do it authentically and get artisans, I suppose is the best word.

[CH]
Very much in that Arts & Crafts ethos. We know about William Morris down in England and the Arts & Crafts movement down below the Scottish Border into England. What they were doing up here was a movement in a similar sense and time. Using local craftsmen and local materials – that is what is so important at Kellie Castle. They were using a local architect in Elie to come up and help them; also local plasterworkers from Pittenweem to come and copy some of the plasterwork that was already there and create copies of moulds. The Vine Room, if anybody’s been in there, you can see part of the relief isn’t quite as deep. That is exactly what they copied from what was already there. It showed real skill.

[JB]
We’re going to talk a lot about the influence of Kellie and the influence of those craftsmen on the children and what they did later in their careers. But before we do that, I’d like to talk about Hannah, their mother – this beautiful young woman who eventually knocked out 6 children in 12 years. She was pretty busy. Women are so often air-brushed from history because of the social confines of the time, but she was artistic. She was a gifted painter; she had all those children, but she was a driving force. She knew she wanted her children to achieve.

[CH]
Yes. Certainly, she would set little projects for the children in art, drawing, needlework, to the point where Hannah would even start doing plaster casts. She spent time with the plasterworkers learning how to do …

[JB]
This is young Hannah, the daughter?

[CH]
Young Hannah. The girls were given equal opportunities to the boys. As I say, they all went to Edinburgh University to study. I look to Professor James Lorimer, because the father was a very modern-thinking man. He was not a man of his time where girls should be married off, have children and be home-makers. He was very much of the thought that girls should have equal opportunities like the sons.

[JB]
They were so unusual for their time because whenever Hannah and her three daughters went to Edinburgh, they attended classes in Greek, French, German, philosophy, Bible studies and geology. Women weren’t allowed to graduate but you can imagine what someone like Hannah the mother could have achieved but for restrictions of the day.

[CH]
But luckily, they had those opportunities. Those opportunities and that experience that she had in the creative arts then followed on to create such a phenomenal dynasty.

[JB]
As we’re at the top of the castle, which was a hideaway artist’s studio, let’s talk about one of the sons first of all: John Henry, who was the third Lorimer child. He was born in 1856. Photographs of him, Caroline, show a sort of intense, slightly shy man? What was he like?

[CH]
He was a quiet man. There’s actually a picture just to the side of us while we’re sat here, sat with his dog Burley. He was quite a tall gentleman. He retired after his mother’s death in 1916 to Kellie, staying here on his own until his death in 1936. He was quite happy on his own – he was a bachelor; he had never married.

[JB]
He painted his first watercolour at 8. I don’t know what I was doing at 8, but I wasn’t painting watercolours! His first oil painting 3 years later, so he had a prodigious talent.

[CH]
Incredible! By his 40s, he had property in London, Edinburgh – albeit he always came back to his beloved Kellie Castle. He had first gone down to do portraiture – that’s where the money was, in a sense. That’s how he gained his small fortune. He did 130 portraits in his career.

[JB]
But he didn’t like doing it?

[CH]
He didn’t and he always retreated back to what I would call genre paintings.

[JB]
He wrote to his sister when he was in London and said, ‘The only hope for me is when I am free from the genre of portraiture.’ He said that he wanted to tell stories. Although his portraiture, I think – and you know far better than me – doesn’t just show likeness but shows character. So, he is achieving that.

[CH]
His portrait paintings … if you go into the John Henry Gallery here, if anybody comes to visit, you look at his mother and father – beautiful, sat side by side. It’s almost as if they’re life size; it’s almost as if they could get up from where they’re seated and walk out into the room and greet you. He really captures character and personality. In the one of his younger sister Janet Alice, he creates something that is almost like Singer Sargent, it has this feeling where he captures in paint the feeling, the satin. He’s influenced by so many people, even down to the Dutch painters and Vermeer. This idea of capturing light that is quite incredible in his paintings, even of his interiors.

[JB]
Do you know what’s incredible? It’s that we are sitting here in the studio where he created. The castle itself, for anyone who’s interested in art, the walls are laden with John Henry’s work.

[CH]
This new publication has come out recently – Reflections – and it really captures chapter by chapter the idea of home, family; the idea of a spirit of place that Kellie represents. It’s not just a property; it has a being in essence that has worked through all of the Lorimer family.

[JB]
You say he never married. Can you talk to me about one particular painting, which absolutely captivated me: The 11th Hour. It’s here.

[CH]
The 11th Hour has finally come home, just in this past year. Very kindly, the Lorimer family have gifted it to the National Trust for Scotland. The painting is quite incredible. It’s very atmospheric; it’s actually influenced by the room it’s now hanging in – that’s the Vine Room. It shows a woman sat just prior to, or just after (it could be either), her marriage day. She’s sat there looking really quite forlorn.

[JB]
It’s the saddest wedding picture I’ve ever seen.

[CH]
It is. There is a discussion that it was also known as Marriage of Convenience. There’s also a discussion that it could represent sisters that had to depart Kellie.

[JB]
Because two of them did, didn’t they?

[CH]
When they married, both Hannah and Janet Alice actually left the property to marry and move abroad. Sadly, this could represent, as in the painting The Flight of the Swallows, it shows the sadness of people leaving Kellie Castle. They did return, but it was the feeling that the family was being changed. They were so close.

[JB]
The story I most like is the story that it could potentially be John Henry’s lost love.

[CH]
It could be! There are various stories about a lady called Harriet that he was madly in love with. Unfortunately, her family were not happy about the match because he was seen as somebody that wasn’t financially stable in his profession as a painter. There could be reasons … He maybe met his true love but he never had the opportunity to settle down with her.

[JB]
It is a poignant piece.

[CH]
There could be all sorts of reasons.

[JB]
He does seem a sad man but, as you say, perhaps happy in his own company. He took over the lease here in 1916 when his mother died, as you said. His paintings sort of went out of fashion and he lived here at his beloved Kellie until old age forced him to move.

[CH]
He also had a property down in Pittenweem called The Gyles that he would retreat to when he got particularly cold at Kellie. And I can tell you, it does get very, very cold! Without any central heating. As he was here on his own, maybe he wouldn’t have had servants to light fires. As a bachelor, I think he probably retreated down to Pittenweem in the worst months.
They do say that he used to wander round in a long, black coat with hot water bottles fastened to the front with a bit of string, to keep himself warm. He must have been quite a vision because he was a tall, quite well-made gentleman. I think in the end, I feel he was almost married to Kellie; it became his muse in a way.

[JB]
How lovely.

[CH]
I can understand, as somebody who spends a lot of time here. It has a personality, this place. It has a spirit which becomes part of you and becomes almost like a friend.

[JB]
Well, on that note let’s take a short break from the considerable talents of the Lorimers. But don’t worry – when we come back, we’ve got more!

[MV]
Scotland’s history? Think battlefields; think castles; think great glens and historic homes. But think tenements too, and townhouses and doocots, mills and humble cottages. The National Trust for Scotland works hard all year round to safeguard the stories of all sorts of Scots for future generations to enjoy. They do it for the love of Scotland, and you can play your part too. Just head to nts.org.uk/donate

[JB]
Welcome back to the podcast I suppose we should be calling ‘The Lorimers have got talent’ because they have it by the bucket load. Before the break, Caroline, we talked about John Henry, the third Lorimer – keep me right here. His older sister Hannah, she was another incredibly creative member of the family.

[CH]
She was so talented in so many ways. She could be an artist, she could carve, she …

[JB]
Her sculptures are in one of the bedrooms – beautiful!

[CH]
The Blue Room. The Mother and Child, which sits above the Lorimer cradle – she captured again the feeling of basically the human spirit very much in all her artwork. She was so taken by the work of the craftsmen that worked here, to the point where she even spent time with them almost like an apprentice, learning how to create the moulds of the plasterwork. She even went on to take on commissions and actually undertake work elsewhere. When she married Everard im Thurn, she was very accomplished at creating watercolours, botanical drawings namely, in this case orchids. They are now kept in the botanical collections at Kew Garden. They’re so notable and beautifully created.

[JB]
Once again, although you say a forward-thinking family, you wonder what the girls could have achieved if they had been born in another time.

[CH]
I think Hannah probably could have achieved anything she wanted. But I think she ultimately decided to become a wife. I think she could have become very, very successful in her own right, and there is this discussion with scholars now about why didn’t she. But she made that decision. She fell in love with this gentleman who was quite a bit older than her, and it was very sad for her to leave Kellie, especially when she was so close to John Henry. It was her ultimate decision. She was a really strong character. She was known as Lorrie – that was her nickname – and she was quite a driving force throughout especially John Henry’s career.

[JB]
But she was a woman of her time, wasn’t she? It’s easy for us to put our own values on her – why didn’t you become a sculptor? It was very difficult because, in terms of her station in life, it wasn’t expected of her to do something like that.

[CH]
That’s right.

[JB]
This is the family you do not want to live next door to if you have kids of your own, do you?! We’re moving on now to another child – this is the youngest one: Robert. When I was researching this, I really got the feeling that he was the child who was most influenced by growing up here because he was an impressionable 14-year-old when the family took on Kellie. By all accounts, it had a profound effect on him.

[CH]
Yes. Robert became an architect. But he was more than an architect; he was a designer. What he created was quite incredible.

[JB]
If John Henry was quiet and had an air of sadness, Robert not so much!

[CH]
He was much more forward-going, as you would say. He was outgoing, he knew how to develop himself, how to present himself, how to make the best of every situation. Quite the complete opposite, maybe, of John Henry, who was more retiring. Robert was very good at selling himself and what he was capable of achieving, certainly.

[JB]
He became an architect and he not only designed buildings, but he designed the furniture.

[CH]
He did interiors. If you look, for instance, at Hill of Tarvit Mansionhouse, it’s literally just a stone’s throw from Kellie, 20 minutes, near Cupar. He created the design of the building for the Sharp family, the interiors to actually help house the collections that the Sharp family collected …

[JB]
Don’t say too much about Hill of Tarvit because there’s an entire podcast coming soon! Spoiler alert! But also here, the rooms are full of his distinctive furniture. He was a hugely influential architect. He was remembered by people he worked with as ‘a frugal man who resented buying coal for his architect’s office’. You could say that, but because I know what Kellie was like, and because you’ve explained the fact that they didn’t really bother about heating and they were quite a bohemian family, that might not have been the fact that he was mean, but it was what he was used to!

[CH]
That’s it. When they first all moved in as children, they were literally all staying on the east tower – that was the only part that was habitable. Imagine! There was a little letter written by one of the children about how they woke up one morning and there was ice on the windows, and they had to scratch away the ice to look at the sun coming over the Firth of Forth. It’s quite incredible. They would have literally just put on a tweed shawl – wrap yourself up, keep warm, keep active – and that was the mindset of living in a property like this. Anyone who lives in an old house, it gets particularly cold, and you learn to adapt to it.

[JB]
Absolutely, we were far more stoical in those days. Something that you intimated: he knew how to sell himself. He was not short of a bit of ego. He is famous for, among other things, the magnificent Thistle Chapel in Edinburgh’s St Giles’s Cathedral. That tells you the level of the work he was doing. But he wasn’t the most diplomatic. Again, one of his staff wrote that he told a client ‘This house will be remembered because I designed it, not because you paid for it!’

[CH]
Oh, he had self-confidence! That’s for sure. The interesting thing is – there’s a lovely photograph of him in the Earl’s Room. We’ve created a little room – the Robert Lorimer study – just to show you some of his work and some of his designs relating to some of his furniture and his draughtsmanship. The drawings of the Vine Room ceiling done while he was staying here growing up are quite superb – the elevations of Kellie. What he always comes back to in a lot of his work, you’ll notice in his architectural designs, is that he’s highly influenced by the architecture of Kellie.

[JB]
Once again, it permeates them all, doesn’t it?

[CH]
It always comes through. Even though he was this man who was very good at selling himself, he still had his roots at Kellie. Kellie was again, in a way, a muse for him in his designs.

[JB]
My favourite Robert Lorimer – I think you know what I’m going to say – is the National War Memorial in Edinburgh Castle. If you haven’t been, anyone listening to this, it’s such a serene but reverential building. That should be a podcast in itself. The controversies though surrounding that – because it took a long time to be designed and built – that must have taken up a great deal of his life?

[CH]
It must have done. What an honour to have been given that task of creating that. That’s going to be here for generations to come. He was ultimately knighted for his work, so obviously that time and the issues he maybe faced were all worth it because he became Sir Robert Lorimer as a result of his work.

[JB]
But indirectly, Robert was responsible for Kellie’s salvation once again, through his son. Tell me about that.

[CH]
Yes. When John Henry died in 1936, obviously Kellie was left again to itself. It was coming up towards the Second World War. Hew Lorimer and his wife Mary – Hew being the son of Robert Lorimer – were living in Edinburgh at the time. There was a feeling that it was not safe to be staying in Edinburgh, so they moved actually up to The Gyles firstly in Pittenweem, to stay where John Henry had spent his winters. Mines had come in from the sea at The Gyles and had exploded – it had made quite an impact on the property. Hence, they decided to come back up to Kellie. They renewed the lease and came to a property that needed quite a lot of work doing once again. Mary was quite incredible. She had the true spirit of the Lorimers within her. To say she had married a Lorimer, she was very much of the ‘Mend and Make Do’ mentality of the time.

[JB]
Hew was a sculptor and they met at art school?

[CH]
They’d fallen deeply in love. When they first came to Kellie, they had children all, I think, below the age of 3. They had three children: Robin, Monica and Henry. All those children had rooms in the south-west tower, but their mother was quite a driving force in bringing that spirit of Kellie back to life, using found objects, going round the local auctions. They said she used to go round all the auctions in a little pony and trap, finding anything that was interesting for the castle to start to furnish it again, until they could bring furnishings up from Edinburgh.

[JB]
Eventually though, it became even too much for Hew, after Mary died.

[CH]
Once Mary died, sadly he made the ultimate decision. Although they had actually been able to buy the castle from the Earl of Mar & Kellie offering it for sale to them, they made the purchase from them. But sadly, a number of years later, after Mary had died, Hew Lorimer decided in 1970 … he already had a link to the National Trust for Scotland, which had been formed in 1931 … he decided the ideal thing would be to sell it to the National Trust for Scotland. He knew what an important property this was and what was included within it and the story it told.
So, it was sold in 1970 but the lovely thing is he stayed on as the property manager, living in the east tower until his older age. He was able to tell that story to the visitor; that continuity was there. Still keeping his workshop, which we still have to this day in the Stables area.

[JB]
A fabulous exhibition of his work.

[CH]
Incredible. We’ve kept a room of his work just off the shop area as well. Sadly, he then had to go to a nursing home in St Andrews prior to his death. Subsequently, we’ve had property managers – also known as Visitor Services Managers over time – that have kept that story alive. I think there’s very few people who’ve done my job who haven’t been touched by the place. As I say, it becomes quite a true friend; it’s more than a property. It’s very difficult to lock up at night, but it’s always good to come in and say good morning! You always feel when you come in of the morning that it’s something you have to say hello to!

[JB]
What I particularly like, and I’m sure visitors will sense this too, with the furniture, the paintings, the combined talents of the Lorimers, even the family members we haven’t managed to discuss, they’re all still within these walls, as you say. It isn’t a cold series of exhibits that were purchased down the years; it’s a family history.

[CH]
It is. And the friendship with the Lorimers has been maintained. I’ve been friends with them for many years. It’s wonderful to keep that relationship going. The Lorimer Society is still very much a strong part of what we do. Robin and Monica are still alive, Hew’s children. They still come back, and they tell the story of what it was actually like staying here as a child. It wasn’t quite as romantic sometimes as you would imagine. It would have been tough. When Hew and Mary came back during that Second World War period, there was no electricity; there was barely running water.

[JB]
What an adventure playground. I’m sure you won’t mind me sharing this, but you believe that you are not alone in this castle.

[CH]
No. People are going to think me a bit … as soon as you talk about the word ghosts, it conjures up this idea that someone’s a bit wacky. There is a presence here. That’s what I will describe – there’s a presence, there’s a feeling that you’re being watched. Again, somebody might say that sounds a bit creepy. It’s not. It’s a feeling that whoever it is – it may be more than one, it could be the whole family – are wanting you to be here. They’re watching you but they’re happy that the story’s continuing.

[JB]
You think it’s John Henry, don’t you?

[CH]
I think it’s John Henry Lorimer that I feel; certainly, I feel a male presence that is still wandering around. I sometimes feel I’m going to bump into him. I know when I came back after furlough, after Covid, I was the only one that was working here for that entire winter of 2020. I was up in the library looking at one of the paintings, to put some tissue over it to cover it, just to protect it. And there was certainly a presence of somebody walking behind on the floorboards, as if to say ‘yes, you’re doing the right thing’. I just gently walked round the edge of the room and out. I know that sounds quite a strange thing, but it’s having this feeling that you understand what has been before. And a property that dates back to 1360, the characters that have lived here, there cannot NOT be an energy left of some sort, whether you believe in ghosts or not. There must be some energy of the past, the people, the spirits that have lived here, and I think that’s what gives this spirit of place that Kellie imbues.

[JB]
Absolutely. What a story, Caroline. Thank you for sharing it with us, and well done to the Lorimers who were doing what the National Trust for Scotland does long before it was even a twinkle in John Stirling Maxwell’s eye.
If you’d like to visit Kellie Castle, and maybe even John Henry, you’ll find details on the National Trust for Scotland web pages. Entrance is by guided tour. Please check before you come to make sure the castle is open. That’s all from this edition of Love Scotland. Until next time, goodbye.

[MV]
Love Scotland is brought to you by Think and Demus Productions, on behalf of the National Trust for Scotland. Presented by Jackie Bird.
For show notes and more information, go to nts.org.uk and don’t forget to like, subscribe, review and share.