Either side of the stairs are displays of ceramics including a fine Compagnie des Indes part dinner and dessert service, decorated with the Cowan coat of arms. These date back to the beginning of the family’s fortunes when Alexander Stewart married wealthy heiress Mary Cowan in 1737.
Drawing Room
The drawing room was the social hub of the house, and remains a warm, welcoming room today. Four tall windows open onto the south terrace while comfortable armchairs and sofas gather around the fireplace. The piano provided a source of musical entertainment, sometimes provided by Duncan Morrison, who collected and transcribed Scottish songs and music. Edith’s grandfather was the Duke of Sutherland and she grew up at Dunrobin Castle- she was at heart a Scot. A Scottish piper woke guests in the morning by playing his bagpipes on the terrace, and led them in to dinner in the evening.
At one end of the room stands the Congress of Vienna Desk, brought back by Castlereagh after the Congress and the Peace of Paris in 1815, for which he was made a Knight of the Garter. Above it hangs his portrait, by Sir Thomas Lawrence, wearing his Garter robes for the coronation of George IV in 1821. Indeed this room is dominated by portraits, mainly by Sir Thomas Lawrence. Beside Castlereagh is a portrait, after Lawrence, of his brother Charles Stewart and at the far end of the room are portraits of Charles’s second wife, Frances Anne Vane Tempest, and son George, and of Alexandrina and George as children. Either side of the fireplace are works from the 1790s of Castlereagh and his wife Emily Hobart. Across from them hangs a lyrical work by John Hoppner of Frances Vane, as Miranda from Shakespeare’s The Tempest.
Read more about the Londonderry Collection here.