The 3rd Marquess of Bute introduced exotic animals to Mount Stuart which included beavers, porcupines and wallabies; the latter of which, can be seen depicted in Horatio Walter Lonsdale’s final ‘Days of Creation’ artwork above the Marble Staircase at Mount Stuart. Letters in the Bute archive suggest that the animals were first introduced in the early 1870s with Lady Bute writing in 1873, ‘I shall have to give up going out – the kangaroos may be 8 feet high...& are very fond of jumping onto the top of people’. Further letters from the 3rd Marquess to Lady Bute at this time discuss the purchase of two additional beavers, possibly to boost the population which was ‘not succeeding’.
The animals lived on the Mount Stuart grounds for several decades with Beaver Dam and Beaver Lodge named after Bute’s most unusual inhabitants; Beaver Lodge was, at one time, home to the estate’s gamekeeper. In 1894 a young Earl of Dumfries, later 4th Marquess of Bute, wrote to his mother, Lady Bute, to tell her that he has been feeding the kangaroos bread. An unusual diet and perhaps the reason they do not survive at Mount Stuart today!
Sadly, the 3rd Marquess died in 1900 and after this time there are no further records of exotic species at Mount Stuart. Lady Bute focussed her efforts on continuing extensive building works at Mount Stuart as tribute to her late husband. Nowadays, Mount Stuart’s gardens and shore line are home to a wide variety of Scottish wildlife including roe deer, hares, otters and seals.
As told by the Mount Stuart Trust
More information on visiting the area can be found here.