A Prime Minister's Haven

The retreat of a celebrated Victorian politician, sportsman, antiquarian and bibliophile has been restored and brought back to life. John Martin Robinson reports on this remarkable survival

- John Martin Robinson

BARNBOUGLE CASTLE enjoys a sublime site on the shore of the Firth of Forth near South Queensferry (Fig 1). It was rebuilt in its present form by the 5th Earl of Rosebery in 1879–81, a celebrated politician who served in successive Liberal governments and followed Gladstone as Prime Minister in 1894–95. He was also a brilliant orator, an outstanding sportsman, a writer and a historian, as well as a connoisseur and collector.

The castle is very much the expression of his literary, historical and antiquarian enthusiasms. It was also a retreat from his Regency seat at Dalmeny House, half a mile away, a place where he could read and write and practise his speeches. Therefore, it has six libraries, where he would go when suffering from insomnia, but only one bedroom and none of the usual Victorian servants’ quarters or conventional reception rooms.

The 5th Earl’s work to the castle consciously celebrated his family’s Scottish roots and a tablet on the east front is pointedly inscribed: ‘Remove Not The Ancient Landmark Which Thy Fathers Have Set. Proverbs XXII 28.’

The founder of the family fortunes, Sir Archibald Primrose, 1st Baronet of Carrington, or Clerkington, Midlothian, was a successful lawyer, Clerk Register of Scotland. He bought the estate, comprising the baronies of Barnbougle and Dalmeny, from the Hamiltons after the Restoration in 1662 and the old castle—reworked to create the present building—was the family home for 150 years.