WHS trip to Scotland 3-6 Sept 2025

For those WHS members lucky enough to attend the Ireland wallpaper tour in 2023 it would be hard to imagine the experience could be bettered, but this autumn the redoubtable David Skinner once again deployed his peerless organisational skills to put together another superb trip, this time to Scotland.

Some of the WHS group outside Mackintosh at the Willow, Glasgow

Twenty WHS members, including David and his wife Gabi, gathered in Glasgow to explore a wide variety of venues where we could see wallpaper, either in its original domestic environment, or carefully stored behind closed doors. Members arrived from as far away as Canada and the Netherlands and soon got to know each other as we toured, lunched, travelled by coach through the Scottish countryside and pored over fascinating examples of wallpapers, sharing both expertise and enthusiasm. Academics and conservators, designers and makers, and straight-up wallpaper aficionados all delighted in having three days together to indulge their passion.

A room from the Tenement House, Glasgow

Our first stop was at the Tenement House in Glasgow where, after an introduction by Emma Inglis, Regional Curator for the National Trust for Scotland (NTS), we were free to explore this atmospheric early 20^th-century domestic interior, home of shorthand typist Agnes Toward, with its fully furnished time-capsule rooms featuring wallpapers carefully reproduced after the originals.

Moulded plaster frieze at Mackintosh at the Willow

After teas and lunches at Mackintosh at the Willow (formerly known as the Willow Tea Rooms), the iconic building designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh and his wife Margaret Macdonald for entrepreneur Miss Kate Cranston in 1903, we spent time in the accompanying exhibition before splitting into two groups for the afternoon.

Some members headed to 19 Mirlees Drive, an end-of-terrace house recently acquired by NTS, for a private tour of its interior which includes embossed and mock leather papers, whilst others congregated at Kelvin Hall. Here we were taken into the Glasgow Life stores to view some early 20^th-century domestic wallpapers and a magnificent pattern book of 1935 papers by furniture maker and yacht fitter Wylie & Lochhead full of exuberant textured and gilded art deco designs.

Viewing the Wylie & Lochhead pattern book

The next day saw the group board the coach out to Helensburgh to visit The Hill House, commissioned by publisher Walter Blackie and largely considered to be Mackintosh’s masterpiece. Its fragile structure means that it is shrouded in a protective steel frame structure covered in chainmail mesh, but this does not detract from the beautiful interiors with furniture and fittings designed throughout by Mackintosh and his wife Margaret.

Touring The Hill House

Moving swiftly on, we travelled on to a home which couldn’t have been more of a contrast – Moirlanich Longhouse in Killin. This extraordinary cruck-framed byre dwelling has been beautifully preserved by NTS and offered a fascinating insight into life in a traditional rural dwelling, not least because of the wallpaper sandwiches clinging to the walls and sometimes numbering over 20 different papers.

Moirlanich Longhouse and a box bed in a room with multiple layers of wallpaper

The day finished at an extraordinary renovation project in the form of Culdees Castle, a 19^th-century baronial-style country house featured in Channel 4’s ‘Renovation Nation’. The dauntless owner, Tracey Beaton, happily showed us round her developing wedding venue complete with newly frescoed chapel, glamping pods and whiskey bar, and we all admired the wallpaper she had specially commissioned from WHS member Lucy Birkinshaw. If we felt tired and overwhelmed by that point, we were put to shame by Tracey’s boundless optimism and energy.

The back of Culdees Castle

Our last day was spent in the environs of Edinburgh, first visiting Newhailes House, a Palladian mansion, once home to the Dalrymple family, with its impressive rococo interiors and Chinese wallpaper.

Viewing wallpaper in one of the bedrooms at Newhailes House

We then journeyed on to Abbotsford, home to Sir Walter Scott at the height of his fame and repository for his extraordinary collection of armoury, weapons and other medieval items. For us the main attraction was his Drawing Room where we lingered to admire the walls covered in an exquisite green Chinese wallpaper adorned with traditional birds, butterflies and blooms.

Chinese wallpaper in the drawing room at Abbotsford

Our final visit was to Traquair House, Scotland’s oldest inhabited house, nestled in the Tweed Valley south of Edinburgh and occupied by the Maxwell-Stuart family for the last 900 years. Our guide took us on a tour of the historic interior, much of it unchanged since the 17^th century, and we were able to see fragments of historic wallpapers, including a room papered with a French block-print bought at the time of the Great Exhibition in 1851.

Traquair House

Exhausted but exhilarated, we returned to Edinburgh where we bid goodbye to some of the group who had trains and planes to catch. For those of us who were able to spend a quiet Sunday morning in Edinburgh it was a great time to reflect on a trip that had been a triumph of planning and a hugely rewarding experience for all of us. Thank you, David!

This overview gives just a flavour of the trip, but many of the places we visited have been written about in depth by other members, so please keep an eye out for lots more ‘Scotland Stories’ in the coming weeks.

Lucy Ellis

All photos by the author