The journey to save Mavisbank

In 2024 we were delighted to announce a major grant of £5.3m from the National Heritage Memorial Fund to rescue Mavisbank. We’re now embarking on what will be a long journey to secure its future.

A major grant received to rescue Mavisbank

Campaigners have laboured for decades to save the 300-year-old architectural gem in Midlothian, Scotland, from collapse following a catastrophic fire 50 years ago. Its terrible condition and uncertain ownership had left this ‘Category A’ masterpiece in a derelict and highly perilous state.

Our breakthrough came in May 2024 with the award of a £5.3m grant from the National Heritage Memorial Fund to rescue the building. Landmark has been working with Midlothian Council, Historic Environment Scotland, the Mavisbank Trust and others to identify a viable solution to Mavisbank’s woes for many years and made the application in January 2024, believing the house met the criteria of being of ‘outstanding importance to the national heritage’. The grant enables Landmark to pursue phase one of a fresh plan to give Mavisbank House a vibrant and sustainable future.

A brighter future on the horizon

The vital first phase will see the crumbling building and pavilions stabilised before any more historic fabric falls away, enable up-to-date condition surveys and resolve the long-standing, hugely complex ownership and access issues.

At the end of 2024 we appointed key members of the team who will lead on rescuing and restoring this internationally significant building. Each contract has been awarded following a competitive procurement process advertised via Public Contracts Scotland, administered by Ingham Pinnock Associates and Brodies LLP.

Morham and Brotchie’s Edinburgh office has been appointed as specialist conservation quantity surveyor. Their previous projects include the Robbie Burns Museum, Penicuik House and Grassmarket Community Project.
Environmental consultancy Ironside Farrar, with offices in Edinburgh and Glasgow, has been appointed the project’s landscape architect and civil engineer, which includes scoping and developing the new access drive to the currently marooned site. Their team led the masterplanning and landscape design of Helix Park and the Kelpies in Falkirk and are currently working with the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh.
LDN based in Edinburgh were successful in a highly competitive tender process to lead design services on the House. Their work has included working with Calderdale Council to transform the Piece Hall in Halifax, the restoration of Provan Hall in Glasgow and the regeneration of Riddle’s Court in Edinburgh’s Old Town.

The long journey to save Mavisbank will have many stages, including:

2024-2025 Acquisition process for the ruins of Mavisbank House, led by Midlothian Council.

2026-2027 Phase One: Landmark will take ownership of the house and work can start on repairing the standing masonry, liaising with Historic Environment Scotland (in whose care the policies sit) to create the access route to the marooned site and make the building safe to visit.

2029 Phase Two begins, if funds can be raised, with reroofing, restoration of interiors with extensive opportunities for people to participate, learn traditional skills and follow the work in progress. The end use is expected to be a mixture of accommodation for short residential stays and public access, including regular free open days.

Community engagement aspirations

Landmark aspires to deliver high quality training opportunities for people from all backgrounds. We hope to run traditional craft skills taster days for local secondary schools, work experience and apprentice placements with our main contractors, and CPD webinars sharing the expertise being developed on our project with the wider industry.

For our local communities, we will offer family friendly volunteering opportunities, public hard hat tours, behind the scenes scaffold tours, and talks about the history and stories of the building and the people who have lived and worked there.

All activities will be listed here on our website, communicated via our mailing list and engagement social media channels.

A group of people standing outside a derelict building

The history of Mavisbank House

Mavisbank was built from 1723-7. It was designed architect William Adam, and his client, Sir John Clerk of nearby Penicuik. Clerk absorbed European culture during his Grand Tour in the 1690s, and at Mavisbank he created his vision of a classical villa for civilised retreat to the countryside, situated within a beautiful valley that he gently landscaped. Clerk became a major figure in the Scottish Enlightenment after the Union with England in 1707.

The Clerks of Penicuik sold Mavisbank on in 1811. In 1876 the house was bought by a group of pioneering Edinburgh doctors as a private asylum. Dr John Batty Tuke, the asylum’s director, modernised mental health practices by treating it as a medical (rather than a criminal) condition. Mavisbank patients participated in gardening therapies under its remarkable Head Gardener Mary E. Burton, self-educated and the first female professional gardener in Scotland.

The asylum closed in the 1950s and was sold again to a private owner, who used the site as a car breakers yard. A disastrous fire in 1973 was followed by abandonment. The building was left a roofless shell, saved from demolition in 1987 only thanks to public outcry.

Join the journey

The National Heritage Memorial Fund grant is the major enabler in a total £7.8m funding package of which 85% is secured, including £1.398m raised to date from various other sources, including the Landmark Trust’s own funds. To complete the project we must raise a further £1.102m – and for this we need your help.

Those pledging £10,000 or more to the first phase will be honoured as Rescue Guardians of Mavisbank and will play a crucial role in laying the foundations for its future. To find out more about becoming a Guardian, contact Bruce Hall ([email protected]) or Hatty Masser ([email protected]) in our Development team.