page_title: William Adam (architect)
section_title: Country houses
hierarchical_section_title: William Adam (architect) / Architectural works / Country houses
caption_attribution_description: English: Duff House, Banff, Scotland. Designed and built by William Adam (1689-1748)
context_page_description: William Adam was a Scottish architect, mason, and entrepreneur. He was the foremost architect of his time in Scotland, designing and building numerous country houses and public buildings, and often acting as contractor as well as architect. Among his best known works are Hopetoun House near Edinburgh, and Duff House in Banff. His individual, exuberant style built on the Palladian style, but with Baroque details inspired by Vanbrugh and Continental architecture.
  In the 18th century, Adam was considered Scotland's "Universal Architect". However, since the early 20th century, architectural critics have taken a more measured view, Colin McWilliam, for instance, finding the quality of his work "varied to an extreme degree". As well as being an architect, Adam was involved in several industrial ventures and improvement schemes, including coal mining, salt panning, stone quarries and mills. In 1731 he began to build up his own estate in Kinross-shire, which he named Blair Adam. He was the father of three architects; John, Robert and James, the last two were the developers of the "Adam style".
context_section_description: His first commission seems to have been for extensions to Hopetoun House, near Edinburgh, for Charles Hope, 1st Earl of Hopetoun. Hopetoun had been built only 20 years before by Sir William Bruce, and Adam was retained to rebuild the south-east wing. These works, completed in 1725, aimed to give the east front a bold new facade, stepping forward at the ends with curved sections. According to John Fleming, "nothing so ambitious or imaginative had ever before been attempted in Scotland". Over the following years, Adam would return to Hopetoun, building the south colonnade from 1726, the north wing from 1728, and finally the pavilions from 1736. These were not finished until 1742, the year of the Earl's death, and the completed scheme was finished by Adam's sons after his own death. Adam also laid out the gardens, possibly to designs by Bruce, whose axial style they follow.
  Other early designs included Drum House, which boasted Scotland's first venetian window, and Mavisbank, both near Edinburgh. Mavisbank House, constructed between 1723 and 1727, was the first Palladian villa in Scotland, a collaboration between Adam and the owner, amateur architect Sir John Clerk of Penicuik. The latter claimed much of the credit, and certainly criticised some of Adam's suggestions, although evidence suggests Adam got his way on a number of points. As at Hopetoun, here Adam enjoyed an unusually close relationship with his client, despite their differences of opinion. His most ambitious early work was the baroque, Vanbrugh-inspired house at Arniston, near Gorebridge. Built for Robert Dundas, a lawyer and politician linked to the Earl of Stair, Arniston includes extensive grounds laid out by Adam, with a parterre and cascade, and a main avenue centred on Arthur's Seat to the north. The stucco work to the hall at Arniston is one of Adam's finest Vanbrughian interiors.
  Duff House, Adam's major work of the 1730s, demonstrates his accretion of local and foreign influences, presenting itself as "a medieval castle in baroque dress". Built between 1735 and 1739, Adam acted as contractor and architect to William, Lord Braco. James Gibbs had recently built another house for Lord Braco, but he declined the commission for Duff, recommending Adam for the job. The main facade of Duff House is remarkable for its height, and with the tall corner towers the impression is of a highly vertical house. This style is related to the designs produced by the exiled Jacobite Earl of Mar, an amateur architect who collaborated with Adam at the House of Dun. Charles McKean compares Duff to the 17th century Drumlanrig Castle, and places it within the Scottish architectural tradition. Like Drumlanrig, and Heriot's Hospital (1620s–1690s) in Edinburgh  before it, Duff House has a double-pile block flanked by taller square corner towers. The "baroque dress" at Duff derives from Vanbrugh, and particularly Eastbury Park (1724–38) in Dorset. Designs for pavilions and quadrant wings were never executed due to Lord Braco's dispute with Adam. Braco never occupied or fitted out the house for the same reason.
  Adam's other houses of the 1730s include House of Dun in Angus, Tinwald in Dumfriesshire, Lawyers House in Perthshire, and Haddo House in Aberdeenshire. His early, unexecuted design for House of Dun, a collaboration with the Earl of Mar, is interesting, as it appears to show a traditional tall Scottish tower house, complete with spiral stairs within the walls, but externally clad in neo-classical detailing; Adam clearly took some inspiration from the Scottish vernacular. Chatelherault, the Duke of Hamilton's "Dogg Kennel" and hunting lodge near Hamilton, was completed in 1743. His redecoration of the Duke's apartment in Holyroodhouse was Adam's most important interior design commission. In the 1730s Adam extended Taymouth Castle and laid out gardens, although his work was largely demolished to make way for the present building in the 19th century. Adam's approach here mirrored the work of Bruce at Balcaskie, extending a Scottish tower house to form a near-symmetrical architec
caption: Duff House, "a medieval castle in baroque dress"
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