"A" Listed by Historic Scotland, and now included in The World Monument Fund's Watch List for 2008, Mavisbank House has lain badly damaged since a major fire in 1973. The building was stabilized in the 1980’s under the instruction of Historic Scotland and it remains in a roofless, derelict and deteriorating condition.

The house and its extensive gardens were designed and built between 1723-36 to be a symbol in a new kind of Scotland which was moving out of barbaric darkness and into the period known as The Scottish Enlightenment, a part of the culture of European mainstream, a culture which would have world wide influence.

Mavisbank was built by two men - William Adam, the architect, and his rich patron, Sir John Clerk of Penicuik. Both men had been born in and lived through a time of crisis and despair for Scotland - the Covenanting Wars, crop failures, and the economic mayhem of the Darien Disaster had reduced the country to poverty, possibly the poorest in Europe - the Scottish parliament had voted itself out of existence in 1707, in a union with England. These men prospered because of the trade opportunities that were opening up within The British Empire.

William Adam developed architecture within his own family. He had three architect sons, one of whom was Robert Adam who is considered to be the greatest architect of the late 18th century, and whose work influenced the development of Western architecture, both in Europe and in North America, with the revival of the classical style.