Tour Scotland photographs and videos from my tours of Scotland. Photography and videography, both old and new, from beautiful Scotland, Scottish castles, seascapes, rivers, islands, landscapes, standing stones, lochs and glens.
Old Photograph Keil House Southend Scotland
Old photograph of Keil House on the shores of High Keil in Southend near Campbeltown, Argyll, Scotland. Keil House was once described as the most palatial house in the country. James Nicol Fleming made his fortune from cheap Indian cotton, sold to Britain for an inflated price. By 1865, he was a director of the City of Glasgow Bank, and owner of Keil House. Unhappy with the original house, Fleming commissioned a Glasgow architect, Campbell Douglas, to design a grand house more appropriate to his status. Local sandstone was quarried for the construction, finishing stone was imported by sea, rooms were panelled with the finest wood, and finished with the most ornate plaster work. The completed house was said to have had more windows than Buckingham Palace, so two windows were blocked to reduce their number in deference to the monarch. Ninian Bannatyne Stewart, another Glasgow merchant, son of one of the founders of Stewart and McDonald of Glasgow, acquired the property from Fleming's trustees in 1883. Following Stewart's death in 1912, the remaining family then sold the house and estate to the trustees of the Mackinnon Macneill Trust in 1915, who had been looking for suitable premises in which to establish a school, and would go on to develop Keil House as the Kintyre Technical School.
All photographs are copyright of Sandy Stevenson, Tour Scotland, and may not be used without permission.
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