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The House
that George built
An account in
last years Annual described how the Jacobite George Robertson of
Faskally escaped capture in 1746 by hiding in an oak tree near the modern
village of Pitlochry. Several versions of the story have ended with his
disappearance abroad and subsequent early death. But this was not so. He
lived for another thirty years and his doings are recorded in letters
preserved in an Edinburgh library.
George’s
father stated in a declaration made in 1712 that he was descended from
Alexander second son of Alexander Robertson of Struan and his second wife
Elizabeth Stewart daughter of John earl of Atholl who were married soon
after 1500. By a charter confirmed by the crown in 1533 the younger
Alexander and his wife Isobel Hay of Errol received lands which formed
the basis of the estate, and later barony, of Faskally. These lands did
not cover one continuous stretch of country but fell into two sections -
one extending some three miles up the left bank of the river Garry from
Bruar and a short distance down the right bank from Kindrochet to
Pitaldonich. There was then a gap (owned by Robertson of Lude) to the
river Girnaig and the other section covered the right bank of the Garry /Tummel
both north and south of the pass of Killiecrankie - the northern part
which included the main house being called Faskally and the southern part
Dysart.
In 1717
George’s father Alexander married Anne Mackenzie a member of a
distinguished legal family originally from Ross-shire. Her father John was
an advocate (barrister) and principal clerk of session in Edinburgh while
three of her brothers were also lawyers - Kenneth, an advocate and later
professor of Scots law at Edinburgh University, George also an advocate,
whose career will be noticed later, and John, a writer to the signet
(solicitor) in Edinburgh - all of whom had considerable influence on her
son at one time or another, and from whose correspondence the story is
told. Alexander died in 1732 leaving six daughters and an only son George,
then six years old. In his will he appointed Kenneth Mackenzie and a
county neighbour James Stewart of Clunes as curators for his young heir,
and by what was to prove a very fortunate step, they executed a formal
deed of factory appointing Anne to look after the estate on her son’s
behalf.
When he
was about 17 George was apprenticed to his uncle John Mackenzie but did
not take to the law and in early 1745, much to his mother’s dismay, was
considering joining the British army to fight in Europe. But he did not
go and a few months later war came nearer home. Like many families
George’s relatives were divided between Jacobite and government
supporters. The Robertsons under old Struan were mainly Jacobite but his
mother’s Mackenzies were mostly for the government though she had a
Jacobite brother and cousin. George Mackenzie, her older half brother, had
been attainted for taking part (detail unknown) in the ‘15, spent some
years as a wine merchant in Bordeaux and been pardoned in 1725, just in
time to stand as godfather to young George Robertson, while her cousin
John Hay, also a lawyer, was to come out in the ‘45. and go in to exile
with Prince Charles Edward remaining in his household in Rome for a
further 30 years. Young George joined the Jacobite army to serve in the
3rd battalion of the Atholl Brigade. His own part in the rising is not
recorded but the brigade under Lord George Murray went through the whole
campaign.
Like so
many Jacobite fugitives George disappears from record for some 16 months
after his tree climbing act. He was one of those excluded by name from the
act of indemnity but his estate was not one of those forfeited to the
crown, as Struan was, probably because of the old deed of factory and his
mother remained at home looking after it. As early as July 1746 Anne had
been wondering what she could do to help her son and George Mackenzie
advised her to ‘let the firey edge wear off’ before aproaching her
government supporting family and friends, among the latter being
apparently General Wade. George may well have gone abroad then but with
nothing said, his mothers letters to her brother John leave an impression
that they both knew where he was and may even have been in touch with
him. In November 1747 she begins to refer to ‘my friend’ who has been on
a journey and saying that she is glad to know that he is ‘out of the way
he had been in for some time past’. This was a reference to young George
who had just arrived in Trumpington near Cambridge, the home of his uncle
George Mackenzie, from where under an assumed name he wrote to his mother
that he was learning the French language which suggests that if he had
been living abroad it was certainly not in France but was perhaps
considering going there. Between January 1748 and June 1750 he was writing
from London still using false names such as James Smith and James
Mackenzie and trying to decide how to earn an independent living. It is
not clear when or if he received a formal pardon but in mid July 1750 Anne
was openly writing of her son and a legacy he was expecting and by
September he was back at Faskally signing a bond in his own name although
Anne was still acting as his factrix. A year later he was openly and on
his own behalf dealing with the factor for the (staunchly government
supporting) Atholl estate.
In
August 1756 George’s uncle Kenneth died, his place as advisor being taken
by his younger brother John with whom George kept up a fairly regular
correspondence as his mother had been doing for years. Later that same
year George met Jean Graham daughter of Patrick Graham a younger son of
the Inchbrakie family, and they were married in the following summer.
They
were to have no family but George, or perhaps it was Jean, soon decided
that they needed more living room. His father’s will showed that in 1732
there was furniture in the old house of Faskally in the dining room, the
Ladys’ room (clearly a sitting room), the blue room, the yellow room, and
the little room, all with beds and chairs and tables in them, in addition
to a nursery, garret and cellar with all the usual outbuildings such as
brewhouse, washinghouse, granary house, kitchen and stables. But in spite
of being deep in debt George decided to move down stream to the south of
the pass to what were the lands of Dysart and we can follow his progress
in unusual detail through the letters. In July 1761 he gave John Mackenzie
his reasons. ‘After weighing all the circumstances I am determined to
build at Dysart, by inlarging the dimensions a few feet of what I intended
here for a kitchen I can have a house as good as I could wish and much
more convenient than what I possess at present the roof of which is in so
crazy a way that in eight or ten years it will need to be renewed. As
materials are in the country at a moderate rate I am hopefull I will get a
house and what little office houses I will need for the first execute for
£300 at most. I would be greatly obliged to you if you would get from your
friend Mr Barclay a plan or two such as would suit me ... I make no doubt
of letting my farm here to advantage and settling my mother still more
conveniently than she is at present ... I will work 4 acres there easier
than one here .. will have neither Bog nor Rock to fight with and I have
plenty thorns to inclose with ... I have some few materials provided
already and I propose to employ what remains of the summer in laying in
more. .I promise myself .great pleasure in executing this scheme.’
John,
who had a country home not far away at Delvine north east of Perth,
replied a week later with encouragement and practical advice. ‘ Since
your heart and eye is in the Mortar Tub ... your first step is to resolve
on the fixt situation, catching all the advantage of Beauty or otherwise
the place affords, such as having a good spring easily commanded for the
use of the house, a dry stance and warm, never overflooded in winter and
the view of the cascade of Tummell or any other benefit the prospect
affords ... After your stance is determined fall to work directly and
gather materials - I mean stone, lime and timber and lay down the first
and 2nd in cairns and heaps on the place. I mean rough stone for very few
free stone must serve, in the leading of which and the timber and slate
you may possibly get some help from charitable friends and neighbours. The
collection of stones and lime I take to be the work enough for this season
... Next you are to ponder wisely on your Masons and Wright the first
you’ll find about Dunkeld ... early in Spring as the weather permit your
mason must fall to work’. John says that he and his wife propose to
drink ‘a dish of tea’ in the new house on 15 August 1763, the day after
the law term closes. He says he will work on the plan and will look after
the money for George and also that he thinks the present house will do for
George’s mother ‘with a little fresh straw on the kitchen’.
All
seemed set to begin but, although George reported in February that he had
workmen and horses ready, the first half of 1762 passed without progress
and in June George confessed that he couldn’t decide on the exact spot for
the stance and wished to consult John and his friend Harry Barclay, also
an advocate, but in that year appointed secretary to the Commissioners for
the Annexed Estates, the body that administered the estates forfeited by
the Jacobites. A month later George told his uncle: ‘I had the foundation
of my house staked out on Tuesday se’night and it is now almost digged -
tho’ I was slow to fix I am now quite well pleased with the stance. I have
the largest open Front that the ground would admitt of a gentle slope to
the east and west and two or three views of the water the bank of which on
one side is covered with wood to the north the ground rises gently for
about 150 yards and above that a fine bank of Oak. I have lime upon the
ground that will serve for this season and am busy leading stones and
propose to begin to build Monday se’night. I was in Rannoch last week and
bespoke all the great Timber for joisting and Roof all indeed that I will
need except two or three floors and Doors and Windows which must be of
foreign wood. I am at a loss how to get seasoned Oak for window cases for
tho’ we live in the midst of woods we have little Timber of that size and
none at all seasoned ... I have agreed with a very sufficient tradesman
for my wright.‘
But the
autumn found George still collecting material so that the house could go
ahead in the spring and the first half of 1763 saw some progress. By the
end of June he reported that the house was finished ‘as to masons’, the
roof begun and the kitchen walls to be finished in a few days and as much
plaster work as possible had been done before the frosts. But he did not
propose to do any more work that season. The ‘dish of tea’ had had to be
postponed and John upped the stakes by inquiring ‘when may we expect to
eat a leg of a chicken with your wife in her new house?’ The end of the
year evidently brought familiar problems with the tradesmen. Harry Barclay
who, in spite of a considerable workload in Edinburgh, seems to have
continued to take a practical interest in the project, wrote on 28th
December: ‘I do not wonder that you and the plaisterer shoud differ as to
the necessity of Cornishes [cornices]; because you are to pay them and he
is to be pay’d for them. But, for my own part, was he to give me his work
for Nothing I would certainly never introduce them into any Room under 12
feet high, when I think it is necessary you should have them. But there
may be great differences betwixt what is really Right in itself and what I
may judge to be so.’ He goes on to say that the window glass is ready for
collection and that he has ordered closet locks with handles as well as
locks.
There
was a setback in April 1764 when George reported that the house work was
at a stand owing to the weather and it was another year before he could
write in triumph: ‘Greatly to my satisfaction upon my coming here [to his
sister’s home at Urrard] I found my house quite dry and everything in
great forwardness about it after making allowances for the month of May. I
do not think this country I live in can afford a more agreable
habitation.’ Finally on 11th June 1765 he told his uncle John: ‘Yesterday
I took possession of the new fabrick ... I could not in idea form a notion
of anything more agreeable to me than the house and everything about it.’
The
other part of the plan failed as George’s mother was evidently not happy
with the renovation of the old house even with the fresh straw on the
kitchen. She and her sister Mary decided to settle in Dunkeld where she
remained until her death some eight years later.
In the
following years George continued to improve his new surroundings reporting
in March that ‘I have a cherry tree planted the beginning of February in
leaf and more Greens in my garden than his Grace’. Soon after this he sold
much of his estate to the duke of Atholl, presumably to settle some of his
debts, keeping only the house and a small farm. And at the new house at
Dysart, now called Faskally, George and Jean lived until they both died
between 1775 and 1777, leaving George’s nephew Charles Erskine Duncan of
Ardounie as heir to considerable debt still owing to John Mackenzie and
his great nephew and heir Alexander Muir. By May 1781, following a series
of complicated financial transactions, Henry Butter had acquired Faskally
and the two and a half centuries of the Robertsons of Faskally were over.
The house that George built was superseded by another in the nineteenth
century but the stance chosen with such care was admired by later visitors
including Queen Victoria, who was to call it ‘a very pretty place’, and in
spite, or even because, of the later extension of the loch, the place is
much photographed today.
Jean Munro |
