New villa, for John Wilson, bookseller & stationer, 1856-57
Drawing of unexecuted design for coach-house at Tor House
Memorial; Worsdall; McFadzean*; David H. Irving, Macdiss 1985; S&McK*;
Gavin Stamp in Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 57:1
March 1998; Allan Maclean in ATSN no.22, October 1998?
One of the first mature and characteristic Thomson villas, grouped
asymmetrically around a belvedere, originally known as Clifton Villa or
Upper Clifton House. Thomson may have converted an existing building
into a coach house, whose eaves were cut back after a storm in 1884. The
villa was bought in 1873 by Mary Ann Bruce or “the Right Hon” who
liked to be called ‘Lady Bruce', was descended from the Camerons of
Erracht and who first renamed the villa ‘Lochiel House’ and then ‘Tor
Castle’.
A letter of c.1875-76 by Mrs Bruce’s son’s brother-in-law
describes how the house was in the “Chinese Oriental kind of
architecture” and how it was
“really beautifully situated, and has a
splendid view from it, there is a tower at the top which you reach by a
ladder and where she says she smokes her après-diner cigars and which
was illuminated with pink lanterns (color of brides maids dresses) as
well as the rest of the house, with gas...”
As for his hostess, who
liked to wear the Lochiel tartan with fisherman’s boots, she was
“as
mad as Bedlam... and she has a pair of holsters to her saddle with a
couple of five barrelled pistols... In her hall she has a Lock-a-brian
axe with which to attack any one the dogs can’t manage after dark... I
think you will agree with me she must be a lunatic and ought to be
locked up before she does any serious damage, with dogs, axe or pistols.”
Mrs Bruce died in 1880 and the house was then occupied by her daughter
and granddaughter, before being sold to Mrs Catherine Paterson of
Glasgow in 1892 for £850. Renamed ‘Tor House’ by the1960s.
