Dunalistair Estate, Scotland Amazing After Being Abandoned
Dunalastair Estate originally belonged to the Robertson family whose clan lived in and around this area. The clan name is Donnachaidh and there is a clan society of this name. Clan Donnachaidh names include Robertson, Duncan and Reid to name but a few.
POET CHIEFTAIN
The great poet chieftain, Alexander Robertson of Struan, a staunch Jacobite, lived in a house called the Hermitage which is thought to have been on the site of or near to the present Dunalastair House. This was destroyed by fire after the 1745 uprising. A double tower house was built on the site in around 1800 which was known as Mount Alexander.
MACDONALD FAMILY
In 1853 the Estate was sold by George Duncan Robertson, 18th Chief of Clan Donnachaidh, to General Sir John Macdonald of Dalchosnie. He demolished the house and built the present house (now a ruin) which was completed in 1859. General Sir John Macdonald commanded the land forces in Scotland. He also built, in around 1861, much of the village of Kinloch Rannoch including the Episcopal Church in the square and the MacDonald Arms Hotel (now called the Dunalastair Hotel Suites and no longer belonging to the estate).
CURRENT OWNERS
Around 1881 the estate was sold by Alastair Macdonald, son of Sir John, to Hugh Tennent who only owned it for nine years and died aged 27 in 1890 and, in 1891, the Estate was bought by James Clark Bunten who was Chairman of the Caledonian Railway Company and had a foundry and engineering works in Glasgow, Anderston Foundry. He was the present owner's great-grandfather.
James Clark Bunten's only child, a daughter, Jeannie, married Frank de Sales La Terrière, (whose ancestor had left France for Quebec in the 1760s and one of whose sons came to Britain early in the 19th century). The present owner, Ian Cameron de Sales La Terrière lives with his wife, Rose, on the estate.
DUNALASTAIR HOUSE
Dunalastair House was designed by Andrew Heiton, a Perth-based architect, who also designed the Atholl Palace Hotel and Dunkeld railway station. It was really only used as it was built to be used up until the First World War because after that the staff needed to run such a big house were no longer available.
During the Second World War it was requisitioned and used first as a Polish boys’ and then girls’ school and during this period it was considerably damaged, which included the loss of a Millais painting which was destroyed in a fire in the drawing room.
The house’s contents were sold in the mid fifties after the current owner’s grandmother’s death and the house was badly vandalised in the sixties when the lead was stolen from the roof. In those days it was not viable to repair it and no grants were available and it deteriorated very quickly from then on with most removable parts being stolen.
Various ideas have been put forward for restoring it, but the cost would be very great indeed, and nothing has so far come of any of them.
Dunalastair Estate originally belonged to the Robertson family whose clan lived in and around this area. The clan name is Donnachaidh and there is a clan society of this name. Clan Donnachaidh names include Robertson, Duncan and Reid to name but a few.
