Day Hort Macdowall (or Mcdowall) (1753-1809) was the third eldest son of William Macdowall of Garthland and Elizabeth Graham. He married his first cousin, Wilhelmina Graham, daughter of William Graham of Airth in November 1791 and was in the process of building a new country home for himself and his wife in Walkinshaw. In c.1808, he purchased Castle Semple from his brother, William, following financial difficulties caused by the failure of the trading house Alexander Houston & Co, of which William, and his brother James, were partners. This put a financial strain on the family and between 1808 and 1810, all three brothers died.

In 1791, Robert Adam had been asked to make designs for Day Hort’s eldest brother, William, at Castle Semple. Adam was also making designs for the Trades Hall and Royal Infirmary in Glasgow where Day Hort’s second eldest brother, James, was also involved. It is probable that it was through these two connections that Day Hort approached Adam to make designs for a new country house on his recently purchased estate, Walkinshaw.

Adam proposed a classical country house in the form of a right-angled isosceles triangle, with octagonal towers at each corner. Triangular buildings in the form of follies and villas had already been established by Adam’s contemporaries; however, this design is thought to be the first and only full-sized triangular classical house to have been built in Britain. The formation of the triangle, as an isosceles, also allowed for greater circulation internally as opposed to other triangular buildings, by creating well-sized principal rooms on each floor, with smaller intervening rooms to each room on the bedchamber floor. One oversight, as pointed out by Rowan, however, is the lack of lighting to these ancillary rooms.

Bolton suggests that the drawing SM Adam volume 1/74 forms part of this scheme and Rowan also suggests that the drawing SM Adam volume 10/23 forms part of this scheme. However neither of these drawings appear to relate to the scheme for Walkinshaw and are not therefore included in this catalogue.

Adam visited the site on 17 September 1791 and had the designs made in his Edinburgh office. The house appears to have been executed mostly to Adam’s designs. The circular windows on the attic floor were changed to square-headed sashes in execution. King suggests that Adam was not involved with the decoration of the interior.

Following the death of Day Hort Macdowall in 1809, the house passed through some owners and fell into disrepair, as described in the New Statistical Account of Scotland, 1845. It was purchased by Alexander Cunninghame of Craigends, patron to David Bryce, in 1855. At some point a large porch was added to the front. It was eventually abandoned and demolished in c.1927.

Literature:
A.T. Bolton, The Architecture of Robert and James Adam, Volume II, Index, 1922, pp. 30, 79; A. Rowan, ‘After the Adelphi: Forgotten years in the Adam brother’s practice’, Journal of the Royal Society of Arts, September 1974, Vo. 122, pp. 659-710; M. Sanderson, 'Robert Adam’s Last Visit to Scotland 1791', Architectural History, Volume 25, 1982, pp. 35-46; A. Rowan, Designs for Castles and Country Villas by Robert & James Adam, 1985, pp. 92-93; F. Walker, ‘Robert Adam at Walkinshaw’ in (eds.) I. Gow & A. Rowan, Scottish Country Houses 1600-1914, 1995, pp. 150-163; D. King, The Complete Works of Robert & James Adam and Unbuilt Adam, Volume 1, 2001, pp. 106, 151-3, 413-4; C. Mosley (ed.), Burke's peerage, baronetage & knightage, 2003, pp. 2483-4; W. Adams, ‘Classical Paisley’, The Georgian, 2003, pp. 6-8

Louisa Catt, 2024