'It's rather like a foghorn reverberating through the halls and corridors': The young custodians of a castle used to shelter Jacobite rebels and its wonderful Victorian organ
In our latest Country-House Treasures instalment, John Goodall meets the young custodians of Cluny Castle and its loud Victorian organ.
Cosmo and Bronya Linzee Gordon sit at a rare surviving example of a house organ that occupies the first-floor landing of Cluny Castle.
Its ranks of brilliantly painted pipes were decorated by the Scottish artist and designer Daniel Cottier. The fine bench is contemporary with the organ and a small plaque above the console is inscribed with the name of the maker, Forster and Andrews of Hull, East Yorkshire.
This leading company, which operated from 1843 until 1956, made instruments as far afield as Australia and South America and, in 1911, built the 6,000-pipe Hull City Hall organ.
The Cluny instrument was installed in 1873 as part of the wholesale remodelling of the interiors by John Gordon and his second wife, Emily Eliza Steele, née Pringle.
In 1858, Gordon had inherited a vast fortune from his father, also John, who had remodelled the castle on an extravagant scale from 1824.
Cluny Castle is Category A listed building and its grounds are included on the Inventory of Gardens and Designed Landscapes in Scotland.
Cosmo comments: ‘Dating from a time when organs were still far from universal in Scottish Presbyterian worship, it is a wonderful and rather unexpected piece of Victorian craftsmanship and imagination, and remains largely intact and playable. The pedal bass also has the added domestic distinction of being quite capable of waking the entire household, sounding rather like a foghorn reverberating through the halls and corridors.’
Visit the Cluny Castle website for more information.
This feature originally appeared in the May 20, 2026, issue of Country Life. Click here for more information on how to subscribe.
