Hamilton Mausoleum Doors Open Day
Hamilton Mausoleum Doors Open Day
HAMILTON. Hamilton Palace Park
Address: Mausoleum Dr, Hamilton ML3 0DJ.
Doors Open Day at Hamilton Mausoleum.
Hamilton Mausoleum was one of the finest private tombs in the country, and is now one of the town's most famous buildings.
It was built as a tomb and monument to Alexander, 10th Duke of Hamilton, nicknamed 'El Magnifico', but was incomplete at the time of his death in 1852.
The chapel has a massive dome, 36.5m (120ft) high, magnificent bronze doors, and a stunning floor made up of different marbles from around the world. However, one of the first things you will probably notice is its amazing 15-second echo, one of the longest in the world!
Two huge lion sculptures overlook the entrance to the crypt below, where you can still see the niches for the bodies of the members of the Hamilton family.
HAMILTON. Hamilton Palace Park
Address: Mausoleum Dr, Hamilton ML3 0DJ.
Doors Open Day at Hamilton Mausoleum.
Hamilton Mausoleum was one of the finest private tombs in the country, and is now one of the town's most famous buildings.
It was built as a tomb and monument to Alexander, 10th Duke of Hamilton, nicknamed 'El Magnifico', but was incomplete at the time of his death in 1852.
The chapel has a massive dome, 36.5m (120ft) high, magnificent bronze doors, and a stunning floor made up of different marbles from around the world. However, one of the first things you will probably notice is its amazing 15-second echo, one of the longest in the world!
Two huge lion sculptures overlook the entrance to the crypt below, where you can still see the niches for the bodies of the members of the Hamilton family.
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NewsTranscript
00:00Hello everybody, my name is Peter, I am one of the site assistants at the Low Parks Museum
00:10and welcome to the Hamilton Mausoleum.
00:12This was the final resting place of the Duke of Hamilton and his ancestors and for his
00:17predecessors and for his descendants.
00:20Unfortunately the building is now free of Dukes because of the subsidence, the bodies
00:25were removed from the building in 1921-1922.
00:28The building itself is now remarkably standing 18 feet lower than when it was completed but
00:35has stayed intact because one of the reasons is there is actually nothing holding it together.
00:39This is the finest Lego set as we see on the tours.
00:42It is a remarkable building, we have various people requesting to film in it, we have various
00:50people requesting to record in it.
00:52A lot of people really enjoy using the sound within the chapel, the upstairs area which
00:57is open today because of the acoustics in there.
01:01We have an 18 second echo, 9 seconds of sound and then the 9 seconds is the echo reverberating
01:08after it which is why we have had people from Tommy Smith to Francis MacDonald recording
01:16within the building.
01:17We have visitors from all over the world come to the mausoleum and are always bowled over
01:23by the engineering, the incredible sight and sound of the building.
01:28The doors that are now on the chapel are the wooden doors, the replacement doors installed
01:33in the 1920s.
01:34For the same reason that the body is being removed, they removed the original doors into
01:39the chapel.
01:40They were bronze.
01:42They are inspired by the gibbety doors in Florence at the 15th century baptistry.
01:48Three panels per door, they each weigh three quarters of a tonne and when the bronze doors
01:54were in place, that is when the mausoleum reputedly had its echo of up to 30 seconds.
01:59It is not just the finest private mausoleum you will set foot into, it is also one of
02:03the finest, if not the finest, masonic temple you will set foot into.
02:08The lot of the mausoleum you have got to preface by saying, so the story goes, because there
02:12are so many tales and legends built up about this place.
02:16You are looking really at a 20 year project down here, from when Duke Alexander prepared
02:21his own original sketches, because he was very much inspired by the Pantheon with a
02:25bit of Hadrian's tomb thrown in for good measure.
02:27He did his sketches and then gave them out to the various architects of the day.
02:32David Hamilton was the architect, a very very distant relation, who won the contract, however
02:39he died quite soon into the project itself.
02:43So you are basically starting around 1840, you start then getting to 1842-1844, the original
02:48planning and working getting done.
02:50Hamilton dies, a couple of other architects come in and go.
02:54It is David Bryce, a Burnham Bryce architect in Edinburgh, who comes in and sees the building
02:59through to its bitter end.
03:01The downstairs level, the crypt, was ready for the bodies to be brought over from the
03:07old collegiate church beside the palace in 1852.
03:11Duke Alexander himself died not long after that, and was installed in a sarcophagus in
03:16the chapel behind me at the upstairs level.
03:18Unfortunately the building is still not finished, we get some sources saying 1856, some saying
03:231858, until the building is actually fully completed, and the final build I have seen
03:29from Burnham Bryce architects in 1860 is around 28, 28 and a half thousand pounds.
03:34The story we hear about young Duke William about the building is, he basically said,
03:39look, get them in, get it finished, that's my inheritance that's getting spent.
03:43Which is why the building was actually never finished, or completed to the way probably
03:47Alexander wanted it to be.
03:49So whether there was going to be statues, frescoes going on in the building, or was
03:52it going to be a full proper replica of the Pantheon, who knows?
03:56It was all in the mind, as it were, for Duke Alexander.