Bute’s architects

Your otherwise excellent obituary (31 May) for the distinguished engineer Gavin Walker, erroneously attributes Mount Stuart House, Bute, to the English Gothicist William Burgess.

Burgess did undertake some alterations to a previous house on the site, however much of his work was destroyed in a fire in 1877.

The present house from 1879, the most eclectic and sumptuous (in fact completely over-the-top) late Victorian country house in Scotland, is the work of Sir Robert Rowand Anderson, author of the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Glasgow Central Station and Govan Old Parish Church (and founder, in 1916, of the Royal Incorporation of ­Architects in Scotland).

Neil Baxter (Hon FRIAS)
Secretary & Treasurer 

Royal Incorporation of ­Architects in Scotland

Edinburgh