Stately home, school and star of TV
Dunmore Park Estate is most famous for The Pineapple, but it is also home to some stunning woodland and several other notable buildings, including The Parsonage and the now ruined Elphinstone Tower.
Arguably the most remarkable structure is the imposing ruin of the once magnificent Dunmore Park House. The house was built 1820 – 1821 and designed by the architect William Wilkins for George Murray, 5th Earl of Dunmore. It was constructed from sandstone quarried on the estate and was finished to the highest standard both inside and out.
It remained in the hands of the Dunmore family until 1893 when ownership passed to Claud Hamilton Hamilton (not a misprint!) who had been renting it from the Earl of Dunmore for some time. In 1917, when the whole estate was broken up, the house and grounds were sold to Albert Wilkinson who then sold them on two days later to the Jones family, timber merchants from Larbert.
The house ceased to be a family home in 1955 and for a short time it became a girls’ school which closed in 1961. From then, until 1971, part of the building was occupied by the gamekeeper of the estate, but finally it lay empty and has been left to the mercies of nature and vandals.
More recently the house has found fame in the TV series Outlander, appearing in episode 1 as a bombed WWII hospital.
All images by Dunmore Village except the bottom image of Dunmore Park House in Outlander (c) Starz.