| Architect Details |
Dainton & Drake- scheme for Aboyne Castle with Fyvie features (no date); William Burn, architect 1835; James Matthews, architect 1860; George Truefitt, architect circa 1869; John Russell Mackenzie, architect 1885; George Haywood Truefitt, architect 1890s; Mawson & Gibson, architectural practice circa 1899; George Bennett Mitchell, architect 1904; Ian McKerron Begg and Robert Hurd & Partners, architectural practice circa 1975-82.
Ian McKerron Begg practised after 1940. Begg became interim director of Edinburgh New Town Conservation Committee around 1971/72.
The practice was formed after Robert Hurd's previous partner, Norman A G Neil, left Neil & Hurd in 1950. The name of the practice then became Robert Hurd Architect. In 1953, Ian Begg, who had been an assistant from 1951, was taken into partnership and the practice became Robert Hurd & Partners. Hurd died in 1963 and from then until 1965 Ian Begg was sole partner. In 1965 the practice was merged with that of L A Rolland & Partners, which was run by Larry Rolland at the time following the death of his father in 1959. In 1975, Robert Hurd & Partners bought Rossend Castle in Burntisland and restored it as offices for their own use. The practice won a Saltire Award in 1957 and 1967 and a Civic Trust Commendation in 1960 for restoration work in the Royal Mile.
George Bennett Mitchell was born on 27 November 1865 and educated in Aberdeen and Newburgh. He was articled to Pirie & Clyne in 1881 and joined the practice of Jenkins & Marr as assistant on completing his apprenticeship. He remained with them until 1887 when he was appointed architect in the surveyors' department of Davidson & Garden, advocates (i.e. solicitors), Aberdeen. While there he carried out a great deal of work on the Dunecht estate for A C Pirie, both at the house and in the village, and was allowed to undertake a few small private commissions in his own name. On leaving Davidson & Garden, Mitchell opened his own practice at 148 Union Street; the exact date for this is uncertain as Mitchell himself gives dates varying from 1898 to 1 January 1903 and 1 January 1904 in different documents. His business mainly consisted of country house work and villas and cottages for the estates with which he had become acquainted through his work with Davidson & Garden. In 1913 Mitchell's son George Angus Mitchell entered the practice as an apprentice, and was one of the first two students to enrol at Aberdeen School of Architecture when it opened in 1913. His training was interrupted by war service in 1915, but he returned to his father's office on his demobilisation in 1919, completing his diploma course the following year. He practised in association with his father from 1921. The practice moved from 148 Union Street to 1 West Craibstone Street in 1922 and George Angus became a partner in 1929, the firm name becoming George Bennett Mitchell & Son. George Angus Mitchell was elected FRIBA in late 1930, his proposers being Clement George, James Brown Nicol and George Watt. This may have prompted his father to seek RIBA membership, as he applied for Licentiateship immediately and was admitted at the beginning of 1931, his proposers being George, Nicol and William Liddle Duncan; and in May of the same year he too became a Fellow, with the support of the RIBA Council as a whole. By this time George Bennett had been awarded an MBE; he was also a Justice of the Peace, and had acted as District Civil Commissioner at the time of the General Strike in 1926. George Bennett Mitchell's main interest outside the office was the Boy's Brigade, of which he became Commander and President of the Aberdeen Battalion in 1906. His concerns for social welfare were further manifested in his work as Red Cross Transport Officer in Aberdeen during the First World War. From at least 1914 Mitchell had a country residence at Cean-na-coil, Aboyne, one of the several houses he designed there, as well as his Aberdeen house at 4 Deemount Terrace and later at 18 Rubislaw Terrace. Mitchell was taken ill in October 1940 whilst working as Divisional Food Officer for the North-East of Scotland, a position he had taken on in 1938 when hostilities were imminent. He died at his home on 22 March 1941. He was survived by his son, who continued the practice, and his daughter Meta, who like him took a leading part in youth welfare work in the area. His wife had predeceased him some years earlier.
George Haywood Truefitt was born in 1855-1856, the elder son of London architect George Truefitt and his first wife, Mary Haywood. He was articled to his father for two years only. The record of this and any subsequent experience he may have had is not clear, but he became his father's assistant in 1879 and was admitted ARIBA on 9 January 1882, his proposers being Sir Horace James, his father and James Brooks. He was a more orthodox but accomplished designer than his father, as could be seen in the well-informed Scots 16th-century detailing of his additions to Aboyne Castle. Following his father’s retirement to Worthing in 1890, George Haywood Truefitt formed a partnership with Archibald Duncan Watson from about 1894 to at least 1899, but may have practised alone thereafter. He is still described as an architect in the 1911 census but is not listed in the directories for 1914. With Watson he exhibited designs for the London and South Western Bank, Holloway Road at the Royal Academy Exhibition of 1894. Days after his election as Associate of the Royal Institute of British Architects, G H Truefitt married Fanny, the youngest daughter of James Warwick of Thorpe Tower, Peterborough on 19 January 1882. The marriage appears to have been childless.
John Russell Mackenzie was the son of Captain Mackenzie of Friendville, and was articled to James Matthews of Mackenzie & Matthews of Aberdeen; when asked by G M Fraser, chief librarian of Aberdeen, Alexander Marshall Mackenzie denied any relationship with Russell Mackenzie, although Fenton Wyness believed there was. Thereafter, he was in York for a time for experience, perhaps with G Fowler Jones, and by 1850 had commenced business on his own account in Aberdeen, where he secured the patronage of the Aberdeen Town and Country Bank at least by the mid-1860s. At the beginning of 1878 Mackenzie took Duncan McMillan into partnership, but in 1883 Mackenzie became bankrupt. The partnership of Mackenzie & McMillan was then dissolved. Mackenzie's situation aroused considerable sympathy: he had been a town councillor for six years and a public testimonial raised 200 guineas presented by Provost Henderson. After a few years of fairly successful practice on his own account, Mackenzie emigrated in August 1888. He went 'mainly on account of his wife' to Johannesburg, where he was immediately commissioned to design the £20,000 Goldfields Club, but died of a fever on 16 June 1889.
Dainton does not appear in the British Architectural Library/RIBA 'Directory of British Architects 1834-1914'. Drake may be Francis E Drake who was a pupil of James Southwood and assistant to Sir Jeffry Wyatville but he was in Leicester in 1868.
George Truefitt was born in 1824 and articled to Lewis Nockalls Cottingham circa 1839-44. He was subsequently an assistant with Sancton Wood in London and Hervey Eginton in Worcester before commencing practice on his own account circa 1850 as a distinctly eccentric designer. About this time he went with his friend Calvert Vaux on a walking holiday in France and Germany and returned with 400-500 sketches. He published 'Designs for Country Churches' in 1850 and was admitted FRIBA in 1860. The prosperity of his practice was largely dependent on his surveyorship of the Tufnell Park estate in London and on the patronage of the banker Sir William Cunliffe-Brooks in Manchester and on the Glentaner and Aboyne estates in Scotland which he bought in 1869 an 1888 respectively. Some of the later work was carried out in collaboration with the landscape gardener T H Mawson. In 1890 GeorgeTruefitt retired to Shelsey Lodge, Worthing, Sussex where he died on 11 August 1902.
|
Historic Environment Records (HER)