In 1635, the 2nd Earl of Dumfries bought the estate from the Crawfords of Loudoun.

Not content with the old house which was known as Liefnorris, the 5th Earl began discussions in 1736 with William Adam. On Adam’s death in 1748, the project was given to his sons John, Robert and James.

Work began on building the new house in 1754 and was finished four years later. In July 1758, Dumfries travelled to London to visit the workshops of Chippendale in St Martins Lane – his wife had died three years earlier. Dumfries wrote to his kinsman Lord Loudon: ‘The drawing room in the new house is to be furnished with tapestrie hangings… I shall want eighteen elbow chairs… and two settees to hold three people each, by the two sides of the fire… I would have only one pattern elbow chair, and the two settees made at London, and the others I should chose to get made in Edinburgh’.

These were made by the Scottish designers, Alexander Peter and William Mathie. Peter made around 150 pieces of furniture for the Earl including thirteen 4-poster beds and a mahogany side-table copied from a design in Chippendale’s catalogue.

Dumfries, whose son and heir had died at the age of 10, hoped that this house and its lavish interiors would attract a new wife. It worked! And in June 1762, the Earl married Anne Duff, a distant cousin. However, his new wife had other ideas. In October of the same year, a visitor to the house noted: ‘that Colonel Montgomery [was] expelled from Dumfries House for being behind the curtain with the new Countess’. With no children from his second marriage, the estate was inherited by his nephew, Patrick Macdouall-Crichton.

In 1771, Macdouall-Crichton married Margaret Crawford and later that year, the couple demolished the original house, Leifnorris.  The following year, their daughter, Elizabeth was born. Elizabeth later married John, Lord Mount Stuart, the eldest son of the 1st Marquess of Bute. Sadly, Mount Stuart died after falling from a horse, leaving his pregant wife and young son, also called John. John later inherited both titles – 7th Earl of Dumfries from his maternal grandfather and 2nd Marquess of Bute from his paternal grandfather.

The 3rd Marquess of Bute, a keen historian and archaeologist was one of the richest men of his day. He married Gwendolen Fitzalan-Howard, daughter of Edward Fitzalan-Howard, 1st Baron Howard of Glossop and granddaughter of Henry Howard, 13th Duke of Norfolk.

The 3rd Marquess commissioned the Scottish Arts and Crafts architect Robert Weir Schultz to extend the house. Bute spent most of his time at his other properties which included Mount Stuart on Bute and Cardiff Castle. During World War II, Dumfries House was requisitioned by the army.

Dumfries House was about to be sold by Johnny Dumfries, 7th Marquess of Bute when the then Prince of Wales, stepped in. And on 27th June, 2007, it was announced that a consortium headed by the Prince and including various heritage charities and the Scottish Government had raised £45 million to buy the house, its contents and c2000 acres. The trust who now owns the estate is called ‘The Great Steward of Scotland’s Dumfries House Trust’. The house and gardens are open to the public while the estate also provides training and education schemes for children and young people, artists and artisans from all over Scotland

Furniture