Bonnington Pavilion

The Bonnington Pavilion or Hall of Mirrors, now a ruin, is situated in the grounds of the old estate of Bonnington, near New Lanark, overlooking Corra Linn falls on the River Clyde in Lanarkshire, Scotland. Alternative names are the Corra Linn Pavilion and the Falls of Clyde summerhouse. It is said to have been the first Camera obscura built in Scotland. The name comes from the Gaelic 'currach', a marshy place. A legend gives 'Cora' as a daughter of King Malcolm II, who leapt to her death here whilst trying to escape imagined danger.

The building is dated 1708 over the entrance and was constructed by Sir James Carmichael of Bonnington House for the entertainment of his friends and guests. The building had mirrors installed which gave a view of the Falls of Clyde. A view of Corra Linn in 1799 – 1800 taken from Stoddarts Remarks on Scottish scenery gives some idea of the view that visitors would have seen in the 18th-century.

At the time of the construction of the pavilion it was generally felt amongst the aristocracy that nature was cruel and ugly and that women of good breeding should not look upon it unless it was reflected in a mirror or seen through a frame, thereby detaching the view from the aspect of harsh reality and transferring it to that of good taste and high art.

The building was still in use in the early 19th century, although Stoddart refers to it as a summerhouse. Garnett on his 1800 tour refers to the building as a 'pavilion' and mentions the mirrors, saying that .. as at Dunkeld, mirrors are placed, by the reflection of which we had different views of the water. He also comments on the fine view of the cotton mills that was to be had from the west window. It is not clear when it was abandoned, and the structure is now included on the Buildings at Risk Register for Scotland.

The pavilion had 2 floors, and the bottom floor may have been used at one stage as a kitchen for the preparation of refreshments for the ladies and gentlemen who came down from Bonnington House to view the falls.

Although a relatively large window, probably originally having shutters either side, looks onto the falls only a small hole is required for a camera obscura to function as this feature may be a later addition. The entrance door has a window set on each side, which would have prevented the projection of an image onto mirrors placed onto this 'back' wall. A window and ground floor door were present in each of the two side walls of the building; providing up to three doors altogether into the ground floor and a total of five windows, providing for exceptionally good views out of the building. The only apparently uninterrupted surface was the upper ceiling. The artist Alexander Archer sketched the pavilion, probably including some 'artistic licence' from the south-west in 1837. This sketch shows a different arrangement of the steps leading up to the door and a stone gable end, with highly ornate 'crow step' ornamentation, which would have given the building a typical arched sloping roof rather than a flat one as suggested by the remains today (2007). It may well be that the changes to the entrance steps took place when the hydroelectric power station was constructed in 1926 as the pipes carrying the water to the turbine house run very close to the pavilion entrance and they had to be moved to run parallel to the front of the building.

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Wikipedia