Victorian Dower House
Shaun Castle 23 April 2007
Panelled Principal Hall with late 19th century cast iron enamelled stove in decorative fireplace surround
Park House is a fine example of mid-Victorian domestic architecture in the villa manner, popularised through the early work of John James Burnet (1814-1901).
Tradition has it that the property was built as a Dower House for the mother-in-law of the 6th Earl of Selkirk, Lord Daer, Dumbar James Douglas, of St Mary’s Isle, Kirkcudbright, heir of the illustrious Fifth Earl, Thomas Douglas, who founded the Red River Settlement in Canada, and Lady Selkirk, Jean Wedderburn, who effectively ran the north American operations of the Hudson’s Bay Company (1815 -1819). Prominent in the intellectual life of the time, friends of the Selkirk’s included Scott and Burns, both frequent visitors to St Mary’s Isle. Lord Daer had no heir, and the estate passed to his sister Lady Isabella Hope, whose husband was Hon. Charles Hope, who briefly occupied Park House in the 1890’s. Ownership of Park House finally passed out of the dynastic line in the early 20th century.
Believed to have been built between 1842 and 1866, the house is of granite construction under a hipped high-pitched double slate roof with sweeping dormers, high chimney stacks, rusticated quoins and label mounds to fenestration. Rectilinear in plan with a projecting asymmetrical wing at right angles, the massing has two fully unified front elevations, and with the absence of ornament, a design more villa than country house.
The original layout has a simplicity and clarity of proportion, being a classic composite of principal public and private bedroom accommodation off a central spinal hall to ground and first floors, complemented by garret service accommodation to second floor and secondary service quarters, liberally interspersed with closets. Later additions include a two-storey service tower of brick construction with weatherboarded outshut to east elevation.
The house retains much of its original fabric, including panelling, sashes and fireplaces.
Park House is for sale through Lakes & Country 01228 516409.
Two informative essays on Lord and Lady Selkirk in Manitoba, The Quest for a Usable Founder: Lord Selkirk and Manitoba Historians, 1856-1923 and Lady Selkirk and the Fur Trade, are available online from The Manitoba Historical Society.
