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THE
NORTHERN POET |
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The
career of Mackay Hugh Baillie Scott (1865-1945) spanned from the
1890s well into the twentieth century. Having originally trained
at Cirencester Agricultural College, he decided not to follow in
the family tradition of sheep farming and chose instead to study
architecture. He was to join the already established Arts and Crafts
Movement, amongst whose major proponents were William Morris (1834-1896)
and John Ruskin (1819-1900), who lived at Brantwood on Coniston.
Although both these men influenced Baillie Scott, he went on to
forge his own distinctive style.
Baillie
Scott moved to the Isle of Man in 1889 after the wedding trip he
made with his new wife Florence. Here he established his own architectural
practice and the isolation of being away from the mainland led him
to develop his own particular architectural style as can be seen
in the houses he built there. Baillie Scott was also to be influenced
by the great architects and designers of the day, namely Mackintosh
and Voysey.
These
architects were at the forefront of the Arts and Crafts Movement,
which was described as the direct descendant of the Gothic Revival,
looking to the past for inspiration. The changes in architectural
style and the way people viewed their homes were a reaction to the
rapid changes that had been seen in Victorian Britain - a movement
away from small cluttered parlours and dark spaces with small windows.
They were also a reaction against mass production, the industrial
and the mechanical.
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Baillie
Scott described his preferred clientele as "...people with artistic
aspirations but modest incomes" and with this in mind he invented
a new type of small house by opening up the plan around a spacious
living area, and extending the interior into the garden. From the
ornate medievalism of his early half-timbered houses he progressed
towards a simpler architecture, which relied upon truth to material
and function, and precise craftsmanship. His interest in all aspects
of design led Baillie Scott to produce furniture, fabrics, wall
coverings and pianos, which sat perfectly in his harmonious interiors.
Few
original architects drawings survive (many were destroyed in two
disastrous fires), but a number of Baillie Scott's houses are still
standing including several in Cambridge; his own home, The Red House,
on the Isle of Man; and Blackwell. It becomes clear looking round
Blackwell why British design was considered to be at the forefront
of the Arts and Crafts Movement at the turn of the 20th century.
Baillie
Scott was perhaps better known and more highly regarded in Europe than
in Britain and during his career he was commissioned to design a
number of important buildings abroad. These included the decorations
and furnishings for the Grand Duke of Hesse's palace at Darmstadt,
which led to commissions from the Deutsche Werkstatten between 1900
and 1914.
Baillie
Scott continued to design more modest houses mostly for the southern
British garden suburbs until 1939 when, following the death of his
wife, he closed his architecture practice. In 1945 Baillie Scott
moved to a Brighton nursing home where he died on the 10 February,
age 79.
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Introduction|The House| The Collection | History | The Trust | The Restoration |
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