Translation: Jon Alkorta Martiartu, PhD (UPV/EHU)
The astrological roof of Mount Stuart
Divination and destiny in a Scottish palace
We are travelling to the east coast of the Isle of Bute, Scotland. The chosen site is a country house built in neo-Gothic style as the seat of the Marquesses of Bute. It was designed by Sir Robert Rowand Anderson for the third marquess in the late 1870s, as the previous house, built in the early 18th century by Alexander McGill, burned down in 1877.
Inside we found what we were looking for: a design inspired by astrology, art and mythology. A map of the stars can be seen on the ceiling of the Marble Hall. We can also find a spiral staircase leading up to what is believed to be the world’s first domestic heated swimming pool. The building is full of innovations, from an antique telephone system to a Victorian-style passenger elevator.
The astrological key
The Zodiac windows and the celestial ceiling were designed by Horatio Walter Lonsdale for John Crichton-Stuart, third Marquess of Bute, in the late 19th century. The creators of the stained-glass windows were Worrall and Co, the firm of William Worrall, who also worked on several stained-glass windows for the third Marquess at Cardiff Castle. It is likely that the design process for Mount Stuart’s zodiac windows began in 1888, with sculptor and architect William Frame (1848-1906), who worked on the windows, writing to the third Marquess that year with great enthusiasm for the project.
The room itself could be seen as an expression of the third Marquess’s interests in astronomy and astrology, with brightly coloured stained-glass windows by Lonsdale symbolizing the signs of the Zodiac with the high vaulted ceiling depicting the night sky in the northern hemisphere. Despite being a perfect star map, there is a problem with the ceiling design, as the map reads upside down. Two possible explanations have been suggested as the reason for this:
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- That the original intention was to allow the star map to be reflected in a mirror, either on the floor or on a table which may have been intended for the centre of the marble hall, or perhaps to imitate a central pool, or impluvium, of the Roman atrium on which the Marble Hall is loosely based.
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- Another suggestion has been that Lonsdale made a mistake and it is possible that he could never ‘read’ the astrological sky.
Although we are not certain which of the two explanations is true, Rosemary Hannah details the design process of the Marble Room in her 2012 book The Grand Designer.
The following is an extract from Hannah’s book:
An unbroken, swirling chain of figures flows around the room. Each window leads to the next. Scorpio leaps to make Libra’s scales sway. Venus rises in Pisces, and below her, Cetus moves in muscular curves toward Aries. Alongside the signs of the Zodiac appear mythical figures whose stories tie in with the themes of the stained-glass windows. Capricorn is surrounded by nymphs, who milk her for the child Zeus. Taurus, the bull, appears garlanded by Europa, while he is challenged by Orion. John Crichton-Stuart himself (third Marquess of Bute) may appear as a portrait in the window dedicated to his own birth sign, Virgo.
Embedded in the windows are carved glass stars. They were set using the same technique with which precious stones were inlaid in medieval glass. These stars are transparent, not coloured, although they add brilliance to the window. When the sun shines, their purpose is revealed. White as they are, they throw colour in puddles on the walls and floor of the room, for they are prisms. They used a Victorian-style element: hang a prism in the window to create a rainbow point in the room, which creates a dramatic effect on a grand scale.
OpenEdition le sugiere que cite este post de la siguiente manera:
Dr. Pedro Ortega (5 de febrero de 2024). El techo astrológico de Mount Stuart. El blog de Tartalo. Recuperado 19 de marzo de 2025 de https://doi.org/10.58079/vr9f