The Mystery Manor No Longer a Mystery: Poltalloch Mansion, Kilmartin, Scotland

Back in 2013, my husband gifted me a carte de visite album with an image of the above manor house pasted on the inside cover. There were 64 carte de visite photographs inserted in the album, and one loose photograph placed inside the pages. Only three photographs were identified.

I invite you to read about the acquisition in my original blog post, Mystery Manor House Carte de Visite Album.

In 2013 I speculated the Manor House might have been located in Northumberland. I learned recently that it is actually located in Scotland! Trish, a skilled researcher on the British genealogy forum Rootschat.com, identified the mansion for me. She and other Rootschat members posted links to current images. Poltalloch Mansion was built in 1849, near Kilmartin, Argyll & Dumbartonshire, Scotland about six miles north-west of Lochgilphead. The two-storey Jacobean mansion was built by Neil Malcolm the 13th Laird of Poltalloch, at a cost of £100,000¹. It is now a ruin. Below are some links to recent images of Poltalloch Mansion:

https://canmore.org.uk/collection/558813

https://canmore.org.uk/site/39528/poltalloch-house-and-gardens?display=image&per_page=41

https://www.thecastlesofscotland.co.uk/the-best-castles/other-articles/poltalloch/

Since 2013, 9 of the 65 photographs in the album have been identified:

1) Napoleon, Prince Imperial (son of Napoleon III), 1871, photographed by W & D Downey.
2) Charles Bennet (Lord Ossulston), son of the Earl and Countess of Tankerville, 1860, photographed by Camille Silvey.
3) Charles Bennet, the 6th Earl of Tankerville, ca. 1866, photographed by O.G. Rejlander. Lord Tankerville died at Chillingham Castle in 1899. If you remember from my original post, this album was "made from wood grown in Chillingham Park."
4) Olivia Montagu - Countess of Tankerville, 1866, photographed by O.G. Rejlander.
5) Arthur James William Cecil (previously identified, see original blog post).
6) Reginald Edward Cecil (sibling of Arthur James William Cecil), ca. 1878.
7) Miss Austin. Photographer: Elliott and Fry (previously identified as "Miss Austin", but the exact identity of young girl unknown as of yet).
8) Queen Alexandra (Alexandra of Denmark), wife of Edward VII, 1862, photographed by Mayall (image below).
9) Royal Group photo, 1869 (previously identified, information in original post).

Queen Alexandra, 1862, photographed by Mayall

A few of the other images are tentatively named, but I'm not quite satisfied that I've identified them without a doubt, so I will continue to look for other images to confirm those portraits. In future posts, I will feature the above-mentioned images with detailed descriptions about how the photographs were identified.

I do not doubt that Poltalloch Mansion was a significant location for the original compiler of this cdv album. Now that the mansion has been identified, I plan to work on finding the connection between the place and the owner of the album. Research into Poltalloch Castle may help identify other images in the album.

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1 https://www.scotsman.com/news/decaying-highland-estate-of-former-slave-trader-captured-by-photographer-1-4618660^↩