Mavisbank House

Mavisbank House, neo-classical mansion built by Sir James Clerk of Penicuik in 1723

Date	12 February 2012
Location	Loanhead, Midlothian	NT 28844 65227; 55.87490°N, 3.13880°W
Information	In 1698 the 1st Baronet of Penicuik planned to build a country house on the Mavisbank estate between Loanhead and Polton to the south of the city of Edinburgh. His son, Sir John Clerk (1676 – 1755), inherited his father’s title and estates in 1722. The 2nd Baronet was a lawyer, judge and politician who had served as a member of the Scottish Parliament and then in 1707 as a member of the first Parliament of Great Britain. He was also a composer and patron of the arts and worked with architect William Adam (1689 – 1748) on the design of what was to become Scotland’s first Palladian villa. Mavisbank House was built from 1723 to 1727. Work continued for some time on the interiors and on landscaping the grounds. Clerk wrote that he had “built and embellished” Mavisbank between 1723 and 1746. Foreshadowing the commuter lifestyle of many of Loanhead’s present-day inhabitants, Clerk wanted a residence from which he could ride daily to Edinburgh where he discharged his duties as a Baron of the Exchequer Court. The property left the Clerk family in 1815 and became known as New Saughton Hall. It served as a lunatic asylum between 1876 and 1946 after which it was purchased by its last Medical Superintendent. In the 1950s it was acquired by Archie Stevenson. This marked the start of a decades-long period of neglect and decline, ultimately leading to its present ruinous state. Stevenson used the forecourt as a car scrap yard and following a fire in 1973, which destroyed the house’s roof and interiors, he and several others lived in caravans next to the gutted mansion. Those dwelling in the caravans were evicted in 1986 and emergency powers were invoked to undertake remedial work to shore up the shell of the building. Stevenson later sold off all three access roads to different parties and in 1987 planned to demolish the house. A campaign to save the house was, however, successful, with a ruling by the Secretary of State for Scotland coming only hours before the mansion was to be razed. The grounds are now in the hands of Historic Scotland but current ownership of the house itself is uncertain: Archie Stevenson died in 1993 and left it in three parts to beneficiaries in the US who are presumed to be fictitious. In 2003 the Mavisbank Trust was formed as a subsidiary of the Edinburgh Green Belt Trust with the aim of promoting ambitious re-development plans involving the creation of a country park in the grounds and the restoration and conversion of the ruins into holiday accommodation and offices. Mavisbank featured in the 2003 BBC television series Restoration, but lost out to the Victoria Baths in Manchester in the final round of the competition for funding. In January 2012 Midlothian Council announced that it intends to use compulsory purchase powers to buy the house and then transfer ownership to Midlothian Preservation Trust. Mavisbank House (Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland); Mavisbank House (Wikipedia); Mavisbank (The Mavisbank Trust); Mavisbank House to be bought by Midlothian Council (BBC News, 10 January 2012)

Gutted by a mysterious fire in 1973, the villa has suffered from decades of neglect

North-east façade. The courtyard bounded by the villa, screen walls and flanking pavilions was used by the last private owner as a car scrap yard.

North-east façade

Detail from south wing

North-east façade

View past the south pavilion

View past the north pavilion

Detail from south-east side

Detail from south-east side

South-west façade

South-west façade

Detail from south-east side

Mavisbank House

View from the south

Mavisbank House