Mount Stuart

During the nineteenth century Britain witnessed a Gothic architectural revival. Across the land buildings rose, Cathedral like, as monuments to an obsession with the medieval past. Mount Stuart is arguably the finest piece of domestic architecture to come out of this movement. In 1877 the heart of the old Mount Stuart, a building of the reign of Queen Anne, was destroyed by fire. Under the direction of the 3rd Marquess of Bute and his architect Sir Robert Rowand Anderson a new house arose from the ashes of the old - a Gothic palace which fused powerful architecture with intricate details and lavish designs. Yet the house was never finished, much only being completed in an ambitious restoration programme begun by the late 6th Marquess in the 1980s, a programme which continues to this day.