HOME TRENDS
HOME TRENDS
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It was tackled with enthusiasm, blood, sweat, laughter and occasional tears.
Majestic Mansion There is no way to describe Tillycorthie Mansion House other than truly magnificent.
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WORDS BY PAULINE FRASER
Nestled in trees near the Aberdeenshire hamlet of Udny, it is home to Gordon and Cynthia MacGregor and their family, who have painstakingly restored it back to its original glory. The couple have been working on the mansion, which has around 50 rooms and 80 acres of land, for seven years after buying it in 1991. 46
At the time it had been split into three separate apartments - the main house, the lower west wing and the upper west wing, and the couple bought each part individually so they could renovate it back into one impressive house. Cynthia said: “We had rented one of the wings for two years whilst we were looking for something to buy. I had wanted a nice Georgian house but we couldn’t find
one and the two boys were settled here so we bought the main house.” The ceilings were damaged and a lot of water was coming in so the only way to approach it was to buy it as a whole and tackle it as one project. Cynthia, whose family is in the building trade, project managed the whole renovation and everything that had to be done was on a huge scale. She admits they used to refer to it as Castle Fawlty in the initial stages! “It’s been wonderful to see the house change over the years. It was not a daunting experience - it was tackled with enthusiasm, blood, sweat, laughter and occasional tears,” said Cynthia.
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One of the most breath-taking features of the house is the imposing glass courtyard at the centre of the mansion, which is filled with ornamental antique furniture, large towering assortments of plants and a central grass area - and all indoors! The house was built in 1911 by James Duncan who was from a family of farm labourers. When he was 14 years of age he went to Bolivia to work in the tin mines but was also educated in engineering. He had a stroke of luck years later when he was gambling one night and won a disused tin mine which had been flooded. But using his engineering skills he got the mine pumped out and very quickly afterwards he struck gold!
It was then that he returned to the North-east, bought around 600 acres of land and built Tillycorthie. Gordon said: “When they were building the house they apparently drove their Bentley round in a horseshoe shape to create the turning area which is the covered courtyard and the house was built around this. It is said to have been created to allow his wife to be driven inside with her shopping!” The couple, who are involved in a number of charities, including Children 1st and F.O.P (Fibrodysplasia Ossificans Progressiva), often use their house for fundraising parties and love entertaining friends and family.
They are still not quite finished the renovations with a few rooms still to be decorated but Gordon is confident 2008 will see the completion.However, after all the hard work Cynthia says she can’t see them being here forever as they have always planned to move abroad. “Tilly is just too big for a part-time home and too big an upkeep. My business head thinks of it as bricks and mortar but then in my heart I have complete love and passion for this house. “Renovating it back to its original glory has really been an experience of a lifetime and, most importantly, it has saved Tillycorthie and preserved it for the future.” 47