Blythswood House Explained

Status:demolished
Location Town:Renfrew
Location Country:Scotland
Demolished Date:1935
Architect:James Gillespie Graham

Blythswood House was a 100-room neoclassical mansion at Renfrew, Scotland, built for the Douglas-Campbell family from the considerable incomes arising from their ownership of the Lands of Blythswood in Glasgow, including Blythswood Hill, developed initially by William Harley of Blythswood Square, and earlier lands surrounding Renfrew and Inchinnan.[1]

It was designed in 1821, by the architect James Gillespie Graham for Archibald Campbell, the Member of Parliament for the Glasgow District of Burghs.[2] On his death in 1838 it passed to his second cousin Archibald Douglas Campbell (died 1868) of the lineage of Douglas of Mains, who adopted the name of Campbell, a pre-requisite of Blythswood ownerships.

The house also contained a well-known laboratory that was used by Archibald Campbell, 1st Baron Blythswood from 1892 to 1905 to experiment into many areas at the borders of physics, including the use of cathode rays, X-rays, spectroscopy and radioactivity.[3]

The house remained the seat of the Lords Blythswood until its demolition in 1935. Five years later the family title became extinct. The house was demolished in 1935.[4] [5]

References

55.8884°N -4.402°W

Notes and References

  1. Glasgow's Blythswood, by Graeme Smith, 2021.
  2. http://gdl.cdlr.strath.ac.uk/smihou/smihou012.htm The old country houses of the old Glasgow gentry: Blythswood House
  3. Web site: Libraryand Archive catalog . Royal Society . 21 December 2010 .
  4. http://www.theglasgowstory.com/image.php?inum=TGSB00240 Blythswood House
  5. Glasgow's Blythswood by Graeme Smith, published in 2021 www.blythswoodsmith.co.uk