Dumfries House

Members of the Chippendale Society will be aware that Dumfries House has been acquired by a charitable trust and its incomparable early Chippendale collections will remain in tact in the house. This very satisfactory outcome came after a period of intense uncertainty and if The Prince of Wales had not personally intervened it might have been very different. Events were covered in part by the national press, but the full story has only just been told by Marcus Binney of SAVE Britain’s Heritagein the first of a two part series in CountryLife on August 9th.

The original appeal was for £23,000,000 (£6,750,000 for the house and 2,000 acres, and an estimated £17,000,000 for the contents). As this did not include an endowment it was soon realised it was nothing like enough. The full amount of the rescue package was £43m. It has been made up by the following contributions:

• The Art Fund £2,000,000 (the biggest gift in its history)
• The Monument Trust £9,000,000 (founded by Simon Sainsbury, increased from an original pledge of £5,000,000)
• The Garfield Weston Foundation £1,000,000
• National Heritage Memorial Fund £7,000,000 (from its total annual budget of £10,000,000)
• The Scottish Executive £5,000,000 (after Scottish Heritage had turned down a request for £5,000,000)
• The Dunard Fund of Edinburgh £100,000
• The Prince of Wales £20,000,000 (to enable a new community to be built nearby to help regenerate this part of Ayrshire).
• Numerous modest pledges and contributions including from the people of Cumnock and the Chippendale Society.

Christie’s had prepared a massive and truly exemplary two volume catalogue of the contents which will now serve as a memento of the ‘sale that never was’.

It is expected that the house will be open to visitors next year. The Society hopes to be one of the first groups to visit and plans will be announced in a forthcoming Newsletter.