Old Photograph Smoking Room Cloncaird Castle Scotland

Old photograph of the smoking room in Cloncaird Castle near Kirkmichael in Ayrshire, Scotland. It is widely accepted that tobacco smoking originated in The Americas. It was not until the early 19th century that the fashion for cigars and cigarettes arrived in the UK via continental Europe. Smoking rooms reached their height in popularity in the second half of the 19th century, the fashion boosted by the addition of one at the seaside retreat of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert on the Isle of Wight in 1866. The smoking room became part of a suite of rooms often added or altered, to which gentlemen would retreat after dinner.

Cloncaird Castle is a modernised 16th century Scottish mansion to which a new front was build in 1814. Over the entrance to the courtyard is an armorial panel dated 1585. It was built around a 16th century core in 1814 for Henry Ritchie Craiton. Ritchie was succeeded by his second son William Wallace in 1843 and it remained in the Wallace family until sold in 1905 to Mrs Dubs, the widow of an industrialist. Colonel Wallace, who had sold the castle to Mrs Dubs, went on to marry her in 1908, reinstating himself as a result.



All photographs are copyright of Sandy Stevenson, Tour Scotland, and may not be used without permission.

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