James Gillespie Graham

James Gillespie Graham by Edward Burton
James Gillespie Graham's Edinburgh townhouse, at 34 Albany Street

James Gillespie Graham (11 June 1776 – 21 March 1855) was a Scottish architect, prominent in the early 19th century. Much of his work was Scottish baronial in style. A prominent example is Ayton Castle. He also worked in the Gothic Revival style, in which he was heavily influenced by the work of Augustus Pugin. However, he also worked successfully in the neoclassical style as exemplified in his design of Blythswood House at Renfrew seven miles down the River Clyde from Glasgow. Graham designed principally country houses and churches. He is also well known for his interior design, his most noted work in this respect being that at Taymouth Castle and Hopetoun House.

Life

Graham was born in Dunblane on 11 June 1776. He was the son of Malcolm Gillespie, a solicitor. He was christened as James Gillespie. His initial work was as a joiner before he became an architect.

In 1810, under the name James Gillespie, he was living in a flat at 10 Union Street at the head of Leith Walk in Edinburgh. In 1810, he also designed Culdee Castle at Muthill (he would also design the nearby Muthill Parish Church in 1826). In 1814, Graham designed St Andrew's Cathedral in Glasgow (built 1817).

In 1817, Alexander Macdonald, a member of Clan Macdonald of Clanranald, engaged Graham to design the Glenfinnan Monument, a stone tower to commemorate the Highlanders who fought on the side of Charles Edward Stuart during the Jacobite rising of 1745. The tower was completed shortly after Macdonald's death but debts were left outstanding to Graham. Graham had designed other buildings for Clan Macdonald including Arisaig Church (1809) and Arisaig Glen House (since demolished).

Graham worked with Pugin on a number of projects as they were friends and Pugin had an engraved set of drawing compasses with Graham's name. Two projects they collaborated on together included the design of Murthly House (1829 to 1831) and works at Taymouth Castle (1837 to 1842).

Some of his principal churches include St Andrew's Cathedral in Glasgow, and St Mary's Roman Catholic Cathedral and the Highland Tolbooth Church (now The Hub) in Edinburgh. His houses include Cambusnethan House in Lanarkshire.

He was responsible for laying out the Moray Estate of Edinburgh's New Town, and for the design of Hamilton Square and adjoining streets in the New Town of Birkenhead, England, for William Laird, brother-in-law of William Harley, major developer of the New Town upon Blythswood Hill in Glasgow. According to the writer Frank Arneil Walker he may have been responsible for the remodelling of Johnstone Castle, Renfrewshire.

He was elected a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland on 24 March 1817. He designed and built a house at 34 Albany Street in Edinburgh's New Town for himself and his wife and lived there from 1817 to 1833.

He died in Edinburgh at his residence on York Place on 21 March 1855 after a four-year illness.

He is buried in the sealed south-west section of Greyfriars Kirkyard generally called the Covenanter's Prison together with his wife and other family members.

Family

In 1815 he married Margaret Ann Graham, daughter of a wealthy landowner, William Graham of Orchill (d.1825) in Perthshire. ON His marriage he assumed the surname Graham of his wife's family. Together they had two daughters. In 1825, on the death of his wife's father, the couple inherited his large country estate, and James thereafter became known as James Gillespie Graham.

His wife died in 1826, and he married again, to Elizabeth Campbell, daughter of Major John Campbell of the 76th Regiment of Foot.

Principal works

see

Tolbooth Kirk Edinburgh
The west front of Crawford Priory as it is today
Torrisdale Castle
Cambusnethan Priory
Duns Castle
19–34 Hamilton Square, Birkenhead
Ayton Castle
High Kirk, Dunoon
Graham's Blythswood House, Glasgow. Home of the Lords Blythswood; it was demolished in 1935.

See also

Media related to James Gillespie Graham at Wikimedia Commons

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Porter, Bertha (1890). "Graham, James Gillespie" . Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 22. p. 328.
  2. 1 2 3 4 Goold, David. "James Gillespie Graham". www.scottisharchitects.org.uk. Retrieved 19 January 2018.
  3. ↑ "Culdees Castle". Canmore. 18 June 1990. Retrieved 20 April 2025.
  4. 1 2 Gifford, John (1 January 2007). Perth and Kinross. New Haven, Conn: Yale University Press. p. 306. ISBN 978-0-300-10922-1. OCLC 77012227. Retrieved 20 April 2025.
  5. 1 2 Glendinning, Miles (30 July 2019). History of Scottish Architecture. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. p. 235. ISBN 978-1-4744-6850-3.
  6. 1 2 3 4 5 Rodger, Johnny (9 March 2016). The Hero Building. Burlington, VT: Routledge. p. 40. ISBN 978-1-317-02914-4.
  7. 1 2 "Arisaig, Glen House". Canmore. 26 September 2019. Retrieved 20 April 2025.
  8. 1 2 Pugin, Augustus Welby Northmore; Aldrich, Megan; Aldrich, Megan Brewster; Atterbury, Paul; Bergdoll, Barry; Floyd, Margaret H.; Arts, Bard Graduate Center for Studies in the Decorative (1 January 1995). A.W.N. Pugin. New Haven: Yale University Press. p. 183. ISBN 978-0-300-06656-2.
  9. ↑ Walker, Frank Arneil (1986) The South Clyde Estuary, RIAS
  10. ↑ "Number 34 - Information on residents". Albany Street Edinburgh in the 19th century. Retrieved 5 September 2018.
  11. ↑ Edinburgh Post Office Directory 1810/1820
  12. ↑ Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland: A Graphic and Accurate Description of Every Place in Scotland, Francis Hindes Groome (1901)

External sources