Robert Lorimer


Sir Robert Stodart Lorimer, KBE was a prolific Scottish architect and furniture designer noted for his sensitive restorations of historic houses and castles, for new work in Scots Baronial and Gothic Revival styles, and for promotion of the Arts and Crafts movement.

Early life

Lorimer was born in Edinburgh, the son of Hannah Stodart and James Lorimer, who was Regius Professor of Public Law at University of Edinburgh from 1862 to 1890. In his youth the family lived at 21 Hill Street, a Georgian house in Edinburgh's South Side, close to where his father worked at Old College.
From 1877 to 1882 he was educated at Edinburgh Academy, going on to study at University of Edinburgh from 1882 to 1885, however he left without completing his studies. He was part of a talented family, being the younger brother of painter John Henry Lorimer, and father to the sculptor Hew Lorimer. In 1878 the Lorimer family acquired the lease of Kellie Castle in Fife and began its restoration for use as a holiday home.
Lorimer began his architectural career in 1885 working for Sir Robert Rowand Anderson in Edinburgh, and in 1889 for George Frederick Bodley in London. He returned to Edinburgh opening his own practice in 1891. His first major restoration commission was Earlshall Castle in Fife for Robert MacKenzie, a friend of his parents.
He was influenced by Scottish domestic architecture of the 16th and 17th centuries and the Scottish baronial style of Kellie Castle where he had spent much of his childhood and adolescence. From his time in Bodley's office, Lorimer was influenced by the ideas of William Morris, and went on to become a committed exponent of the Arts and Crafts approach to architecture. He assembled a collaborative group of artists and craftsmen who, collectively, often contributed to his various commissions and to the manufacture of furniture sent to the Arts and Crafts exhibitions in London. In 1896 he was elected to the Art Workers Guild.
Lorimer designed a series of cottages in the Arts and Crafts style in the Colinton area of Edinburgh, the so-called "Colinton Cottages". Constructed using traditional methods and materials, each cottage included a garden layout and interior design, including furniture, in keeping with the Arts and Crafts concept. By 1900, eight cottages had been built and four others were under construction.
As his reputation grew the scale of his commissions increased, including major alterations and additions to important houses in various styles, culminating in three entirely new country houses designed in his personal interpretation of Scots baronial style; at Rowallan Castle, Ayrshire, Ardkinglas, Argyll, and Formakin House, Renfrewshire. Of these, Ardkinglas, on Loch Fyne, was the only one built as originally designed and, Lorimer having been given carte blanche, represents his masterpiece.
His important restorations at this time include Lennoxlove House, Haddington and probably his most evocative; at Dunderave Castle, Argyllshire on the Ardkinglas estate. He could take a house of modest character and give it a strong personality, such as Pitkerro, Forfarshire or Briglands, Kinross, particularly where he found the raw materials sympathetic, but he could also disregard existing architectural qualities in a way that modern conservation practice would question, if he felt the result justified its replacement, such as at Hill of Tarvit, Fife where he demolished a previous house probably by Sir William Bruce, or at Marchmont, Berwickshire where he re-configured an altered house by William Adam, ignoring Adam's design.
He was called in to a number of properties to carry out a range of improvements, such as minor alterations, design of interiors and furnishings, work to ancillary buildings, and garden designs and features. A good representative of this sort of work is Hunterston Castle in Ayrshire.

Later life

The First World War restricted the demand for large new houses and his attention shifted to smaller scale projects, war memorials, and restorations. He already had a reputation as one of Scotland's leading restoration architects following the restoration of Earlshall and Dunderave, and he went on to carry out significant alteration and restoration works at Dunrobin Castle in Sutherland following a fire, and at Balmanno Castle in Perthshire, said to have been the only one of his commissions he would like to have lived in.
Although much of his work, and reputation, was in the sphere of domestic architecture, Lorimer also carried out significant public works. Principal amongst these include his design for the new chapel for the Knights of the Thistle in St Giles' Cathedral, Edinburgh in 1911. He received a knighthood for his efforts and went on to gain the commission for the Scottish National War Memorial at Edinburgh Castle in 1919, subsequently opened by the Prince of Wales in 1927. Following the completion of the memorial, Lorimer was in December 1927 appointed a Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire.
He designed the Doiran Memorial and the three great naval memorials to the missing: Portsmouth Naval Memorial, Plymouth Naval Memorial and Chatham Naval Memorial, each of which is a Grade I Listed Building.
Lorimer was also responsible for St Andrew's Garrison Church, Aldershot, completed 1927, a large Army church dedicated to the soldiers of the Church of Scotland and kindred churches who lost their lives in World War One. In 1928, he returned to complete St Peter's Church in Morningside, Edinburgh, which he had designed in 1905. One of his last works was Knightswood St Margaret's Parish Church, Glasgow, which was dedicated in 1932.
Lorimer became President of the professional body in Scotland, the Incorporation of Architects in Scotland, and it was during his tenure in office that the body received its second royal charter, permitting use of the term 'Royal' in the title. Lorimer was a fellow of the North British Academy of Arts.
Ironically Lorimer lived in a mid-19th century town-house designed by Robert Brown, 54 Melville Street in Edinburgh, but Lorimer did heavily remodel the building when he bought it in 1903, adding small window panes, an extra attic storey, and central French doors on the frontage leading to a small balcony. He lived here for his last 26 years, though he died at 12 Randolph Crescent, Edinburgh in 1929.
He was cremated at the newly opened Warriston Crematorium and his ashes were thereafter buried with his parents at Newburn in rural south-east Fife, close to the family home of Kellie Castle. The grave lies in the extreme south-west corner of this tiny and very remote churchyard, overlooking rural Fife towards the Firth of Forth.

World War One work

Over and above the Scottish National War Memorial at Edinburgh Castle, Lorimer was responsible for the simple and elegant design of the Commonwealth gravestone and for the design of several CWGC cemeteries in Germany and in the Middle East. In 1918, Lorimer was appointed Principal Architect to the Imperial War Graves Commission. Between 1919 and 1927, he designed over three hundred war memorials in Britain, France, Italy, Germany, Greece, Macedonia, Egypt, Palastine and one in Queenstown in South Africa.
Cemeteries by Lorimer include: Bordighera ; Campo Santo in Genoa ; Monte Sunio, Caltrano near Venice ; Savara ; Taranto ; Chatby ; El Arish ; Hadra near Alexandria ; Ismailia ; Kantara ; Minia ; Tel El-Kabir ; Lake Dorian ; Baranthal, Asiago near Vernice ; Boscon, Asiago near Venice ; Cairo War Cemetery ; Cavalletto, Asiago near Venice ; Doiran ; Granezza, Asiago near Venice ; Karasouli ; Hortakoi, Kirechkoi ; Lahana ; Magnaboschi, Asiago near Venice ; Montecchio Precalcino near Venice ; Port Said ; Salonika; Sarigol near Kriston (Greece

Freemasonry

He was Initiated into Scottish Freemasonry in Lodge Holyrood House, No.44 on 8 March 1916.

List of buildings ''(not exhaustive)''