Life in a Georgian Castle: Exploring Culzean

This entrance room served as a welcome to the Kennedy home. Every shimmering piece of metal on the wall is an armament of some kind, from cannons to swords, and including the largest collection of used flintlock pistols in the world.

It was important to the Kennedys that their home reflect their status as one of Scotland’s most powerful families. So what better way to greet their guests than with a display of over one thousand weapons!

In 1812, the 12th Earl of Cassillis (Cassillis was the Kennedys' main home in the 1300s) purchased the collection of over 700 flintlock pistols from the Tower of London. They arrived in 12 cases along with one man, who was instructed to ‘fix them up in the proper manner’.

The Kennedy coat of arms is displayed on two walls in the Armoury. Many Scottish clans, or families, have unique coats of arms. The Kennedy coat includes a shield, swans, a dolphin, and a crown reflecting the family’s status.

The pillars, half-pillars within the wall, and ceiling beam mark where this room was once divided into two. Over the generations, Culzean has been remodeled and redesigned several times. The remains of the wall mark off what was once a buffet room.

The Dining Room was created in 1877 under the direction of Archibald Kennedy, 3rd Marquess of Ailsa, who wanted a space to wine and dine friends and family. Architects Wardrop and Reid combined a library and dressing room to make this room. 

Many of the library’s decorations were preserved in the process. The ceiling is a copy of another Robert Adam ceiling in a London house.

A frieze is a decorative band running horizontally along a wall near the ceiling. The original library friezes, sculpted with ox skulls, were preserved. The lintel above the door includes grapevines, to reflect the room’s new use as a dining hall. 

The table is extended to seat up to 32 people by turning a crank at one end. It is currently set for a dessert course of fruit and ice cream.

Of the 9 Marquesses of Ailsa to date, 6 were called Archibald. So is the heir apparent of the current Marquess, David Thomas Kennedy. The portraits here show the 1st and 2nd Marquesses, the first a keen gardener, and the second, a keen hunter and sailor.

The 3rd Marquess made big changes to Culzean, including the addition of the West Wing. The 4th Marquess was the first to approach the National Trust for Scotland to discuss giving the castle to the nation.

The dining room ceiling is made of a mix papier-mâché and plaster. This material was meant to last longer than plaster alone. More importantly it is lighter, which allows for a very large open room without supports such as pillars.

Robert Adam was commissioned to design Culzean Castle by David Kennedy, 10th Earl of Cassilis. Together they revised and improved the plans to arrive at a design that displayed the Kennedys' wealth in a stately manner.

The oval staircase was added 6 years after the main building was completed. Guests would enter this stairway from the dining room, ready to head upstairs for dancing or playing card games.

The first floor of a stately home or castle was called the ‘noble floor’. This floor housed the most beautiful rooms, meant to entertain and impress important guests. It was important that visitors went upstairs in style.

The staircase includes three styles of pillars, from the plain Doric to the detailed Corinthian. In the classical arrangement, the Corinthian columns are in the highest position. 

In the Culzean Castle staircase, these most elaborate pillars are on the lower storey, in better view of guests. 

You won’t find any pillars or struts holding up the stairs themselves, which are ‘floating’, or cantilevered. The treads are anchored in the wall and designed so that each step supports the weight of the one above.

As the staircase sits in the middle of the castle, there was only one way to let in light. A large oculus, or round skylight, opens into a cupola, or a dome that rises from the roof, and light pours in.

This room was designed to be the place where guests could meet and be entertained. 

Culzean is perched on top of a high cliff, originally this was to aid in defending the castle from attack, but, when Adam redesigned the castle he wanted a room that would make the most of the amazing views out to sea. 

Not many homes have round rooms; they are difficult to decorate. They also do rather strange things when it comes to sound. If you stand in the center of the room and talk aloud you will hear an echo, that ONLY YOU can hear.

Straight furniture and picture frames do not sit well against curved walls. To make up for this, Adam created one of his most impressive ceilings, with a carpet to match, you can see a modern copy of the original carpet in this room. 

The light in this room is not a chandelier, but a gasolier. Culzean was lit for many years by gas, which was extracted from coal on the Kennedy estate. It wasn’t until the 1950s that electricity was installed. 

Susanna, Countess of Eglington, was brought up at Culzean over 300 years ago. She was famous for her beauty, sense of humor and intelligence. She lived until she was 90 and kept pet rats, which she invited for tea. 

Much of Culzean is designed for entertainment, other rooms are built for the family’s comfort. Domestic areas including sitting rooms, bedrooms, and bathrooms were on higher floors, or separate wings. Only the family and intimate servants would have had access.

Before indoor plumbing, arranging a hot bath was hard work. Servants heated and hauled water to the tub. A handle next to the fireplace rings a bell in the servants’ quarters, to summon a maid when needed.

The bathroom was furnished for grooming. This is a lady’s vanity, complete with mirrors, hair tools, and scented water. A wide bowl with water jug served as sink, and a chamber pot served as loo.

The cradle reflects the more comfortable, nurturing feel of the domestic rooms. Many of the portraits in this room are of children, reflecting the intimate purpose of the space.

Culzean’s kitchen reflects the castle’s purpose as a place for entertaining guests. Like many kitchens of the time, it was set apart from the main castle, to minimize the danger from fire, it is now connected.  

Kitchens were purely servants’ areas; while the cooking facilities in aristocratic homes like Culzean often included state-of-the-art equipment, this was to aid staff in creating the highest quality meals to impress guests—the Marquesses and their wives stayed away. 

The kitchen fire powered a smoke jack. Hot air rising from the fire spun turbine in the chimney connected to a chain that turned the spit in front of the fire. No kitchen boy sat turning a handle for hours in this kitchen.

The spits in front of the fire are turned by the smoke jack. Meats placed on or in a spit were slowly rotated so as to cook evenly. A basin set below caught drippings for gravies and pan frying.

Large dinner parties meant the kitchen needed numerous stoves. These stoves work like a charcoal barbecue, with open fires powered by coal from the estate. The cook could boil or fry dishes while meat roasted on the spit.  

High ceilings in entertainment rooms give a sense of open space. In the kitchen, they helped to carry away the smoke from multiple coal stoves.  

Traditional roast meats and vegetables made up the bulk of the meals served at Culzean, but the Kennedys’ dinner party menus also included exotic foods in order to impress their guests. 

Not only did the Kennedys serve exotic vegetables, they also spent large sums of money to bring spices from all over the world for use in their kitchen. A locked spice cabinet kept these valuable investments safe.

Foods that we now consider staples, such as sugar, coffee, and tea, were once imported into Scotland at great expense. The equipment and containers at Culzean show that the Kennedys always had supplies of these on hand.

Most of Culzean’s history took place before the invention of modern refrigeration. Pantries off the kitchen held long-lasting foods such as cheeses, cured meats and fruit preserves. Wine and produce such as root vegetables and apples were stored in cool cellars.