1 10 2 https://www.artisansinscotland.shca.ed.ac.uk/files/original/f98f9a485b4770de8c4597c43e26760b.jpg 89b4bd727607e20a3d6ed15cddff432a Exhibition Item Category Metal Wares Image copyright National Museums Scotland Item Location National Museums Scotland Description This photograph shows three smiths working on the wrought iron gates designed by architect Robert Lorimer for the Thistle Chapel in Edinburgh’s St Giles Cathedral. The men are using hand tools and bench-fixed vices to shape the gate’s iron fretwork. The smith to the right is working on its interlocking lower section while the other two are using hammers and metal files to shape curved and lattice forms. Two finished sections of the gates can be seen leaning against the workshop walls. The chapel was designed as a commission from the Trustees of The Order of the Thistle who wanted to create a meeting place for the Knights of the Order of the Thistle in a building that embodied nationalist spirit. When the commission was awarded to Lorimer in 1909 the Trustees stipulated that Scottish craftsmen should carry out as much of the work as possible. Hadden provided the metal door furniture and gates, the firm of W & A Clow carved the ornate choir stalls; Phoebe Traquair and Whytock and Reid were other Edinburgh-based contributors.. The Chapel’s granite and marble floor was the work of James Allen & Sons of Piershill, and the coloured glass the work of Aberdeen glass-stainer Douglas Strachan. On its completion in 1911 the Thistle Chapel represented the very best in Scottish craftsmanship in stonework, metal work and woodcarving. Thomas Hadden (1871-1940) was born in Hamilton, Lanarkshire, to a metal working family from Haddington, East Lothian. He trained at Howgate near Edinburgh and worked for James Milne & Sons in Edinburgh before starting in business in partnership with his brother who was a wood carver. Hadden's reputation as a skilled art metal worker led to his involvement in numerous prestigious commissions, notably the garden ornaments and railings at Skirling House in Peebleshire. Architectural commissions were a key area of his business - he made gates and railings but also more whimsical features including weather vanes, shop signs and bootscrapers. Hadden was at the helm of his workshop for over 40 years, and many of his employees remained with the firm throughout their working lives, but the 1930s and 1940s saw a period of change including a move to Murrayfield on the outskirts of the city. Robert died in 1940 but the workshop continued to execute architectural ironwork, including the Glasgow University Quincentenary gates (1952) and the J Eversden Henderson-designed memorial gates at the George Heriot School (1959). Robert Lorimer (1864-1929) is perhaps Scotland’s best known Arts and Crafts architect, though prior to the Thistle Chapel he’d worked on only one previous ecclesiastical commission. Born in Edinburgh but raised in Fife, Lorimer trained as a furniture maker as well as an architect. He is notable for his employment of local craftsmen throughout his career. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Thomas Hadden’s workshop, Edinburgh, ca. 1910 architects Arts and Crafts Edinburgh Fife granite joiners Lorimer masons smiths stained glass stone carving wood wrought-iron https://www.artisansinscotland.shca.ed.ac.uk/files/original/b29f1528c55ae2ae0e46a8ab140e483b.jpg e6730b7894cdda199020ab2fa1fc4537 Exhibition Item Category Buildings Image copyright Abbotsford Trust Item Location Abbotsford Description This carved pink sandstone fireplace was made by the Smiths of Darnick, a local building firm that was responsible for much of the work at Abbotsford, the house of Sir Walter Scott in Selkirkshire in the Scottish Borders. It is in a medieval ‘Gothic’ style, decorated with a variety of motifs including angels and thistles and the stone is from a nearby quarry. The inset tiles are seventeenth-century Dutch and the fire grate, acquired by Scott in ca.1823, is also thought to date from the seventeenth century. The fireplace is one of the first features that visitors to Abbotsford see as they come through the front door into the oak-panelled entrance hall, with its stained glass windows, ceiling painted with heraldic devices and displays of arms, armour and antiquities. The design for the fireplace is based on the so-called ‘Abbot’s Seat’ at nearby Melrose Abbey, which also features in an early Walter Scott poem, The Lay of the Last Minstrel. The sculptor was John Smith of the Darnick family, who also executed other decorative stone work at Abbotsford and carved a portrait statue of Scott’s favourite deerhound, Maida. His most famous work is the red sandstone statue of William Wallace at Dryburgh Abbey, undertaken for the Earl of Buchan. In addition to the Abbotsford building, the Smiths of Darnick were famous bridge designers and builders mostly on the River Tweed and its tributaries. They also constructed large numbers of country houses, parish churches and manses in the Scottish Borders, being active as a father and sons business for over fifty years from 1808 to 1861. Sir Walter Scott, Edinburgh-raised but who knew the Borders well from childhood, built his Selkirkshire house around an existing farmhouse, spending about £25,000 on the project (the equivalent of two million today) over about ten years from 1813. The house was a tourist attraction during his life time and he died there in 1832. It was a celebration of all things local from the materials used in the construction, to the use of local craftsmen for the stone and wood work and the design references to buildings and places in the Borders of Scotland. The name ‘Abbotsford’ was an invention, which evokes the idea of the nearby Melrose Abbey and also makes reference to the river Tweed, on whose banks the house is sited. Abbotsford, in the building itself, the architecture and design features and its historic collections, was a pivotal contribution to Scottish antiquarian material culture. It incorporated many pieces of antique stone and woodwork from Scotland’s iconic ancient ruins, including Melrose Abbey. The Abbey at Melrose was built as an outpost for the Cistercian-founded Rievaulx Abbey in North Yorkshire and is one of a series of great abbeys across southern Scotland in an area of rich farmland and sheep grazing either side of the Tweed. It was on the route of a pilgrim’s way, ending at Lindisfarne, falling into ruin after the reformation, though parts of the building were still used as the parish church in Walter Scott’s day. There are Roman settlement in the area, with artefacts from these sites also gathered by Scott for his museum at Abbotsford. To the east of Melrose, on the road to Dryburgh Abbey, where Scott is buried, is the promontory known as ‘Scott’s View’ from which a great panorama of the Borders landscape can be seen. Abbotsford and the Borders were important tourist destinations from the time of Walter Scott, with the nineteenth-century development of Melrose largely based on its summer visitors. Numerous craft producers evolved to supply the tourist demand for souvenirs, including the makers of wooden trinkets and small boxes, called ‘treen’, in relic wood, cut from trees that were grown on the Abbotsford estate and thus connected with the great man and the place. Similar wooded objects were made in Ayrshire from locally grown trees to commemorate connections with Robert Burns. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Carved sandstone fireplace at Abbotsford by the Smith Brothers of Darnick, ca. 1822 borders builders carvers design Selkirkshire stained glass stone Tweed wood