Cullen House is the former seat of the Earls of Seafield near the coastal town of Cullen in Moray, Scotland. Initially built in 1600, it has been extended and remodelled several times by prominent architects such as James Adam, John Adam, and David Bryce, and has been described by the architectural historian Charles McKean as "one of the grandest houses in Scotland". The house was taken by the Marquess of Montrose in 1645 during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms, and it was sacked by Jacobite forces during the rising of 1745, shortly before their defeat at the Battle of Culloden. The village of Cullen was mostly demolished in the 1820s to make way for expansion of the gardens by the 5th Earl of Seafield. The building deteriorated during the twentieth century, and in 1982 Ian Ogilvie-Grant sold it to Kit Martin, who worked to save the structure while dividing it into fourteen individual dwellings, still in use today. Further restoration was needed after a serious fire broke out in 1987.

Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cullen_House

_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:

1800:

French privateer Robert Surcouf led a 150-man crew to capture the 40-gun, 437-man East Indiaman Kent. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Surcouf

1849:

American writer Edgar Allan Poe died under mysterious circumstances at Washington Medical College four days after being found on the streets of Baltimore, Maryland, in a delirious and incoherent state. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Edgar_Allan_Poe

1944:

The Holocaust: Sonderkommando work-unit members in Auschwitz concentration camp revolted upon learning that they were due to be killed; although a few managed to escape, most were massacred on the same day. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonderkommando

1991:

Croatian War of Independence: The Yugoslav People's Army conducted an air strike on Banski dvori, the official residence of the president of Croatia in Zagreb. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Banski_dvori

_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:

machicolation: 1. (architecture) An opening between corbels that support a projecting parapet, or in the floor of a gallery or the roof of a portal, of a fortified building from which missiles can be shot or heated items dropped upon assailants attacking the base of the walls. 2. (architecture) A projecting parapet with a series of such openings. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/machicolation

___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:

I consider those developments in physics during the last decades which have shown how problematical such concepts as "objective" and "subjective" are, a great liberation of thought.   --Niels Bohr https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Niels_Bohr