Cookies

We use necessary cookies to make our site work. We'd also like to set optional analytics cookies to help us improve it. We won't set optional cookies unless you enable them or accept our recommended settings. Using this tool will set a cookie on your device to remember your preferences.

Options
Necessary cookies enable core functionality on our website. You may disable these by changing your browser settings, but this may affect how the website functions.
We use marketing cookies to personalise your visit to our website and show you tailored advertising based on your likes and interests.
We use analytics cookies to monitor visitor behaviour patterns and improve our website performance.

Your preferences have been set. If you wish to change your preferences, you may do so on our cookies page.

Search My Trust
Join now
Join
Close

Looking for places? Use our place search to find them by name, town or postcode.

See all stories
25 Feb 2018

Part III: 50 interesting objects

A series of 8 lace finger mats are displayed. Each contains a hand-painted black and white bird illustration.
Finger mats
There are many intriguing and eye-catching artefacts in our collections.

1. Playing cards

Featured Place: Newhailes
A deck of cards (with rules) for the 1930s whist-style game ‘Striptease’.

2. Propeller

Featured Place: Culzean Castle
A wooden propeller from a bi-plane is fixed to a ceiling, with a gold chain hanging from the fixture. One of the blades has an inscription carved upon it.
A propeller from a bi-plane that brought down a Zeppelin near London in 1916

3. Plate warmer

A large metal container stands on 4 legs. It has a door that opens at the front, with a carving of a traditional Japanese scene.
A ‘japanned’ plate warmer, made by Pontypool in Wales around 1800

4. Field Marshal John portrait

Featured Place: Newhailes
A large portrait of a man dressed in military uniform, with a long red coat. He holds a long sheathed sword in his left hand, and wears a Georgian-style white wig.
A portrait of Field Marshal John Dalrymple, 2nd Earl of Stair, painted by Allan Ramsay

5. Finger mats

Featured Place: The Hill House
A series of 8 lace finger mats are displayed. Each contains a hand-painted black and white bird illustration.
A set of eight hand-painted finger mats, to be placed under finger bowls

6. Standard lamp

Featured Place: The Hill House
A standard lamp designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh. It has a wooden stem, and the shade features the Mackintosh rose design.
A standard lamp from 1905 designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh

7. Easy armchair

Featured Place: The Hill House
An easy armchair, designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh. It has a dark wooden frame, with white linen-style padded sections.
An easy armchair, designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh around 1905

8. Centre table

Featured Place: The Hill House
A wooden centre table designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh. The top is inlaid with mother-of-pearl and covered by a glass square. The base is made up of a grid of wooden squares.
A centre table by Charles Rennie Mackintosh, inlaid with mother-of-pearl

9. Burns’s first published book

Featured Place: Robert Burns Birthplace Museum
A 1786 copy of Robert Burns’s ‘Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect’ is displayed open at the page for ‘To a Mouse’.
A 1786 copy of ‘Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect’

10. Burns manuscript

Featured Place: Robert Burns Birthplace Museum
A fragment of a manuscript for Burns’s ’Auld Lang Syne’, written in his handwriting. The bottom right corner has been torn.
A fragment of a manuscript for Burns’s ’Auld Lang Syne’

What we do: Collections

Find out more about how we care for the very wide range of collections items in over 50 of our properties.

More

Read next

Part I: 50 interesting objects

Explore part I of our 50 interesting objects.

A very elaborate and ornate dressing case, filled with ceramic pots and gilt slim cases. Many of the lids are encrusted with red jewels.

Part II: 50 interesting objects

Explore part II of our 50 interesting objects.

Part IV: 50 interesting objects

Explore Part IV of our 50 interesting objects.

Part V: 50 interesting objects

Explore Part V of our 50 interesting objects.

Read more stories on

Back to top