Scottish Style Fred Dibnah's Building of Britain

I've been up a few chimneys in my time, but I've never been up one with as nice a surroundings as this one.

This week's look at the construction skills that went into the Building of Britain brings me north of the border

to see a style that is distinctively Scottish,

and to look at one of the most important works of the Scottish architect who changed all that.

In fact, Robert Adam's style of building was so distinctive, it was named after him.

BAGPIPES ARE PLAYED

This is Glamis Castle, the childhood home of the Queen Mother,

the birthplace of the late Princess Margaret,

and the setting for Macbeth.

It's also been a Royal residence since the 14th century

and is one of the best examples of the Scottish baronial style in existence.

It's a style that was developed in the 16th and 17th centuries,

as much for visual effect as for any practical need.

What it involved was adding a whole lot of magnificent decorative features

to existing clan castles.

The castle is a grand collection of mediaeval architectural bits -

the beautiful, crenellated parapet walls and the turrets and pinnacles and finials and round chimney stacks.

It's all quite wonderful and fairytale-like.

600 years ago, Glamis started out as a simple tower house

and it didn't change very much for another 200 years.

Because the great sandstone tower was too massive to demolish,

they had to build all round it when they wanted to extend the castle.

The first of the extensions and improvements that transformed Glamis

from the mediaeval castle into a great house in the Scottish baronial style were done in 1603,

when the ninth Lord Glamis was made an Earl by King James VI.

To match his new status,

he wanted an HQ that looked a bit more impressive than the old tower.

He added two floors and an attic and, of course, tucked in the corner

of the L-shape of the original tower is the new staircase.

The Earl was his own architect and, although there are no records,

he probably employed masons of the Aberdeen School, led by John Bell, and what a magnificent job they did.

The new staircase was added by the first Earl on the grand scale.

It's sort of 16 feet diameter and magnificently illuminated by the amount of windows that are in it.

And, of course, building it,

they would have started off with a circle, 16 feet diameter, stuck on the foundation blocks

and then inserted the first tread, you know.

It's nice, how they're all radiused on the inside so you don't get the effect of great thick slabs of stone.

As they were inserting these treads,

they'd build the wall up WITH them as they were coming up the steps,

but they've come to a part where they couldn't reach,

so they'd have put logs coming across from these holes here, like this,

onto the centre - there's one there, another one up there -

what they could stand on, while they got the outer wall higher up

to get the next set of treads on, as you might say.

Aye, it's quite a... an interesting staircase.

I'm up here on the roof of the castle amongst all the pinnacles and finials

and beautiful iron railings and flagpoles and what have you.

Now, the bit that interests me most is the slated steeples.

Underneath the slates, there's a lot of complex woodwork that's beautifully tapered and rounded off.

If you had it re-slated today, it'd be a fairly expensive job -

it's a job for a good steeplejack.

This is a little drawing I've done of one of the turrets on Glamis Castle -

the basic construction of the woodwork.

They must have used steeple-jacking technology and great balks of timber

pinned to the side of the circular part of the turret

and planks that they could stand on.

Once they'd got this circular wall plate rested on top of the stonework,

which would be in maybe four or five pieces,

they'd lift up these rafters at the end of a rope - they're not heavy.

You could actually hold one in position while you nailed it to the wall plate.

The slate laps, to get them to curve around the fairly tight curve as you're getting towards the top,

they would saw saw-cuts in the back of it.

It's what you get around maybe a foot diameter, or thereabouts, you know, fairly simple,

and then the slates would be nailed on in the usual manner.

At the bottom, where they're seven or eight inches wide, they'd have two nails,

and as you went up progressively, as the things get smaller,

they had maybe at the top only one nail

and then the whole lot capped with its lead finial or pinnacle.

The vision or the look at it from down below is very pleasing, you know, it looks very nice.

Back in the days of the first Earl when all this building work started,

this is what the inside of the castle would have looked like.

This is the lower hall of the original 15th-century tower house.

It's one of the places that's changed the least in all the castle - it's not been messed about with.

It's a wonderful bit of building.

It almost reminds you of a railway tunnel, doesn't it? It's magic.

It's all quite a mystery in this barrel-vaulted chamber.

There's two distinct lines along the ceiling

where the material changes, the full length of the room.

You know, it's the same material as the tapered arch window openings are built out of.

I think these windows were put in.

There's a pretty nasty joint down around the arch and down each side

and odd bits of the different material, you know, to, like, block up the gaps and what have you.

It's all very interesting.

I could live in here myself - it's quite nice, you know, beautiful.

Up here on the second floor,

this magnificent room was once the Great Hall of the central tower,

and, of course, until its conversion in the 17th century,

it would've looked similar to the room we've just come from downstairs.

The first Earl proceeded to convert it into this magnificent drawing room.

He had all the walls plastered and the fireplace done and the royal arms stuck in the middle.

The second Earl continued the process

when he employed travelling Italian craftsmen to create the fine arch ceiling and beautiful plaster work.

But all this splendour that had been brought to Glamis didn't last very long

because, in 1646, the second Earl died a ruined man,

his estates plundered and with debts of £40,000, which, in them days, were a ginormous sum.

When his son Patrick succeeded him,

he managed to pay off all the debts, and, then, in 1670,

he moved back into the castle and began an ambitious programme of extensions and improvements.

I'm hidden away up here in the top of the clock tower

where all the records for the castle are kept

and I've found the third Earl's diary

and he actually called it his "book of record"

and, of course, in it he detailed all the expenses and the building operations that were going on.

It starts off with what it were like when he first came to look at it, and it says here,

"It be an old house and consequently was the more difficult to reduce the place to any uniformity."

In other words, it were all higgeldy-piggeldy.

"I did covert extremely to order my buildings so the front piece might have a resemblance on both sides."

In other words, he made it symmetrical by placing one wing on either side of the central tower

with both of them coming out at right angles from it.

Not only are there all these records,

but also his dealings with the contractors and the actual contracts that they've got.

This one's an interesting one dealing with one of his main contractors.

It says... His Lordship's unhappy with the bill that he's just received.

"..Sanders Nisbit, as to your pretended additional work..."

In other words, he billed him for a bit extra.

"I shall receive this answer without passion.

"First, I must tell you that I admire with what impudence you charge me any additional work."

And he goes on to say, if you read the contract properly, you know, you'd finish job off.

And then he finishes, "But, Sanders, there are a great many things to be done which are as yet not done

"and must be done."

But, in spite of the odd disagreement, Nisbit was the main contractor for all the work.

According to another of the contracts, Nisbit had to provide five masons to work with him on site,

while the Earl was to provide all materials and services of four workmen for the unskilled labour.

There have been all sorts of extensions and improvements done

since the time of the third Earl especially in Victorian times.

But what we see today, as we look down the mile-long avenue at the 100 foot high towers,

is basically what he created when he turned a mediaeval castle into a great house.

Extending and beautifying an existing tower

wasn't the only way a distinctive Scottish style was developed.

By the 18th century, the leading Scottish architect, William Adam,

began to design country houses that broke away radically from the baronial style.

The House of Dun near Montrose is one of his finest country houses.

Like Glamis, they started off with a great tower here, but rather than building the house round it,

they actually knocked it down and started again on a greenfield site.

It was built by David Erskine, the Laird of Dun,

who was a prosperous lawyer.

Work began in 1730 and it took over 10 years, a bit like one of my jobs!

But you can see why, you know,

if you compare it with Glamis Castle, with the rough stone and the big wide joints, you know.

These joints in these stones, you cannot even get your fingernail in.

To get 'em such a good fit, and all these beautiful reeded columns,

every stone's done individually and, of course, everything had to fit to a degree of perfection.

If you put your eye to the corner, they're dead straight - you cannot fault it -

straighter than what they get it these days.

The great glory of the interior of the House of Dun is this magnificent saloon with its wonderful plastering,

which were done by a man called Joseph Enzer,

and believe it or not, for all this magnificent ornamentation he only got £216, you know.

It sounds unbelievable, dunnit?!

That weren't just one single room - it were for doing the whole house.

Most people coming into this room wouldn't have a great deal of idea how this magnificent work were done,

but when I was at art school, they'd an ornamental plastering department

and even though I never did any myself, I always took great interest in what were going on in there.

And, of course, they made nearly everything on flat benches

and then glued and screwed 'em to the walls in strange ways.

If there were any funny shapes to have nice things fixed to -

like here they've got this wonderful radius from the cornice moulding up to the flat ceiling proper -

they made a curved board of exactly the same radius

and made all these canons and ladies and fancy bits to that radius.

So all the fancy pieces would fit to the same curve, as you might say.

And there's lots of other things of interest in here

because up there, there's reputed to be a real violin that's been dipped in a watery solution of plaster.

Other interesting things - the shells up there have got to be real shells.

To find out some of the tricks of the trade, I went to see the experts.

Hayles and Howe are specialists in ornamental plaster work.

'I asked managing director, David Harrison, about those violins.'

The trouble with that theory is,

if you dip a violin in a bucket of plaster and pull it out,

you have a violin covered in plaster and that's not what these look like.

They'd have sculpted it. They'd have used a timber frame and modelled up the plaster surface on that.

-Things like the strings would be copper wire...

-They're real copper wire.

-..that wouldn't go rusty.

Any trick they could use to save having to model something, they...

For example, there's a spear, which is very delicate.

That wouldn't stay together in plaster,

so that's probably a piece of timber dowel with a point on the end.

Summat like that over the fireplace, that'd be made on a bench, flat, and then raised up, would it not?

The way they would have done that would be simply

model the thing up on a timber frame with an armature on the back,

hold it up, put some wood through to the joists and nail it on.

All of these heavy items, they would have made absolutely certain,

whether modelling from the ceiling outwards or applying something,

that the big bits have armatures in, like statues.

Anything that could fall off, they have to make sure that it's not gonna fall on their client's head.

And now into the workshop to meet the technical director Bob Lewis.

This is the plaster we're using - plaster of Paris.

-It's a fine casting plaster.

-Yeah.

We sprinkle this into the water, never water onto the plaster.

'Give it a good mix.

'Then pour it into the mould.

'Make sure the plaster is evenly spread into all the corners.'

-Before all this wonderful Latex stuff, what would they have used in the bad old days?

-Well...

-there were very few moulds as such. They carved in the ceiling.

-Bloomin' heck!

Yeah.

'Then you give it a key to fix the backing to.'

-FRED LAUGHS

-That's it.

-Cut that bit.

-Come on, it's setting.

-Normally from a Baltic fir, it can be...

-Yeah.

-I can see what happens next. It's sort of folded over, innit?

-Yes.

That's the tricky bit, innit?

The last thing is re-enforcement, all rubbed down below the surface.

I could get used to it eventually.

These pieces that we're doing will be for some Jacobean strap work.

-I can see you've used plaster before!

-Oh, concrete!

'For long sections of cornice moulding, the technique is a bit different.'

Pour the plaster down to start with, just up to the edge.

'Make sure the mould is well filled.

'Then comes the critical bit -

'drawing the template along the whole length of the mould to give the cornice its shape.

'Now that it's dry, we'll walk back to that strap work.'

We make sure it's all utterly released around the outside. It's quite strong.

This is it. This is where it all falls apart.

That's heavier than you'd think, that, innit?

Well, there we go.

-A couple of bubbles, but we can sort that out.

-Yeah. Mmm.

'But is the cornice going to turn out just as good?'

-That would go on the ceiling and the wall.

-Yeah, yeah, it's all right.

Right, three ha'pence a foot!

William Adam had set a new trend for house design and decoration in Scotland,

but it was Adam's more famous son, Robert,

who took some elements of this style

and added a lot of ideas of his own to create a style of architecture that is named after him.

Robert Adam had spent three years travelling around Europe

drawing and studying the great buildings from the past.

He was particularly impressed by the remains of the ancient Roman buildings he saw

and it was THIS that influenced the Adam style more than anything else.

Culzean Castle on the Ayrshire coast is one of his most important and distinctive works.

Adam was commissioned to rebuild an existing castle seen here in one of his own sketches.

His idea was to transform THIS into a romantic-looking castle

designed to heighten the dramatic cliff-top setting.

Adam worked on Culzean over a period of 15 years from 1777 to 1792.

His pupil, Hugh Cairncross, was the foreman for the whole project

and Hugh's brother, William, was the carpenter.

The work was done in several stages.

First of all, he incorporated the original building into the south side of the mansion.

He squared up the central tower and re-faced it

and then built a three-story wing on each side.

The sandstone was quarried locally,

some actually coming from beneath the castle itself when it was removed to make the foundations and the cellar.

The next stage of his building work was the north wing with its massive drum tower on the seaward side.

He built this wonderful round tower

to sit right on the edge of the cliff.

It's a sheer drop for about 100 feet down to the shoreline.

Immediately below us there's a great cave.

He must've been unsure of himself because he's built a stone pillar in the middle of the cave just in case.

I mean, he obviously built it for the beautiful panoramic views of the countryside, the sea and everything.

It's quite a magnificent thing, really,

perched here right on the edge.

It's stood the test of time - it's all still here, it's slightly eroded,

it's facing the western elements and the Atlantic, so it's took a beating over the years it's been here.

Adam's brief extended to the whole of the Culzean estate.

Not only did he build the house, you know,

he built that wonderful viaduct that's part of the grand entrance.

Even the clock tower, which of course were already there,

he's smartened up with the turrets and the crenellated top and of course a new skin down the front.

And the castle's farm that was built to his design is a work of art in itself.

You won't find many farms that look as good as this.

There's an awful lot of stone about this castle,

and the trouble is, most of it came from the Earl's personal quarry

and it's sandstone which is not the best stuff for weathering the storm, as you might say.

Here's the most magnificent example of erosion.

The whole thing's just worn away with the wind

and the sea air, I suppose.

For years now they've been replacing the outer skin on the front of the building.

There's only about a couple of dozen of the original Adam blocks still in position, you know -

they're the dirty ones.

This is Andy Bradley, who's been here for ten years.

He's never been home and he's the resident stonemason.

He does all the maintenance of the stone, and all the repairs, and all the nice bits.

-Isn't that right?

-It is. Well, yeah.

Yeah. Right, this is how you get it, is it, now, like?

-This is how we get it in.

-Big, big slabs.

-We've no set sizes. Everything's various sizes, different lengths, different bed heights.

-Yeah.

-I suppose when Robert Adam were here it'd just come in pretty rough lumps, wouldn't it?

-Sure.

They'd have had great difficulty transporting a block this size.

They'd split it at the quarry and dress it into roughly-squared blocks.

At that point, those stones would be designated for a particular task.

-There'd be some that were long enough to be window heads, some for jams.

-Yeah.

-They wouldn't have a great amount to remove.

-You try and work the minimum.

But what that's done over the years, it's given a variety.

-When you come to a building of a certain age...

-Oh, yeah, big 'uns, little 'uns.

..everything's slightly different.

It's easier to get the stone in random lengths and cut it to suit, as they would've done originally.

-Do you want to look at the scaffold?

-See what you're doing with the retaining wall.

-Let's have a look.

-This place is rather inaccessible, innit, on top of a cliff?

-Mm-hm.

Like most places in those days, they tried to get the stone as local as possible.

There's three basic stones at Culzean, all within a few miles of the castle itself.

-This is actually a retaining wall.

-Mm-hm.

-On top of it is the road to the castle...

-Yeah.

-..a tarmac road, so that might have an effect with the drainage.

-Yeah.

-Up on the top here is the main drag up to the castle.

-Yeah.

When you look at it, you know, it looks out over the gas house.

-It's not seen from the castle.

-No.

-Even in a place like this, they've gone to a bit of effort.

-They have.

They've got this moulding here... and then these canons.

-This one alone is purely ornamental.

-Ah, there's no hole.

-Just ornament.

It must be difficult deciding which stones to pull out and which to leave in - how do you do it?

I'd be having sleepless nights if it were me!

We want to keep the character of the wall pretty well intact.

We'll take out as little as possible whilst maintaining the structural integrity of the wall.

Just because it's badly weathered is no excuse for taking it out.

We want a nice rough surface on there.

'Every single stone has to be prepared by hand

'and this includes getting a nice rough surface on it, so the mortar will key.'

-It's building up the rhythm.

-Yeah. It is, isn't it, really?

'Every line is a blow from a man's arm on an 'ammer and chisel.'

When this place were being built,

there'd be dozens, literally dozens, of stonemasons.

The thing is, this is a wonderful wall to sort of depict different styles of workmanship

producing the squared-off blocks of stone.

I mean, it's obvious that the same man made these door jams - each side it's the same style of chiselling.

Here's a wonderfully detailed one.

Obviously the guy who made that would only do one, and the bloke who made this would more than likely do three.

It's pretty rough, sort of thing,

or he were in an 'urry to go home for his tea, or summat.

They dropped a clanger here. There were gonna be another nitch, but they changed their mind and bunged it up.

But it is certainly a good example of showing masons' different styles of,

you know, using the punch and the mallet and the various fancy chisels that they had.

'But Adam's work isn't just about stonework and exteriors.

'He spent as much time worrying about the inside as the out.'

Especially important was his conviction that the interior of a building,

right down to the decoration and the furnishings, should be the concern of the architect.

This room, with its magnificent ceiling -

it's not too much overdone, is it?

It's light and elegant.

It's typical of his style, you know - he sort of kept everything lovely and sort of light looking.

And, really, he's chiefly remembered for his interiors

with his beautiful fireplaces and his door heads and this rather wedding-cake type plastering,

or not too heavy about any of it.

This is Robert Adam's crowning glory, a masterpiece.

When he'd finished off the north and south side of the house,

he were left with this rather sunless and dark, rectangular-shaped courtyard in between

that separated the two,

and ten years later after he'd started work,

he came up with this wonderful idea that gives a feeling of light and space.

There wasn't enough room for a conventional circular spiral staircase, so Adam made it oval.

I rather think when he first got his ruler out and measured this rectangular-shaped courtyard,

he did a bit of head scratching before he come up with this magnificent thing.

He must've marked out the elliptical row of pillars in the bottom which are joined together with arches.

At the landing, where the cast iron handrail is,

there are 12 Corinthian columns which support a gallery up above,

with another 12, smaller in diameter, Ionic columns, which support a magnificent elliptical dome,

with a beautiful fan light in the top of it that lets all the light stream in.

I've never been in a building where, wherever you stand, if you stand square across the thing and look up,

everything's in perfect alignment.

It's quite magnificent.

If it were round, it wouldn't be so bad, but it's elliptical as well.

The amount of accuracy is incredible.

The whole effect is very dramatic and very typical of Robert Adam -

the only man in the story of the Building of Britain

to have a style named after him all of his own.

The whole place is a magnificent monument, not just to the imagination and ingenuity of Robert Adam,

but also to the workmanship and hard graft of the men who built it.

And next week I'll be much closer to home when I look at the work of the very first civil engineers -

the men who changed our landscape forever

with the building of the canals.

If you'd like find out more about the Building of Britain,

visit the website at bbc.co.uk/history