Charles Doig - Doyen of Distillery Designers

The creation of what is unquestionably the most distinctive feature of the Scotch whisky landscape began with a sketch, drawn during site meeting at Dailuaine distillery on 3rd May 1889. Dailuaine-Glenlivet Distilleries Ltd was developing and expanding its whisky-making facility close to Aberlour, resulting in it becoming the largest distillery in terms of capacity in the Speyside area. 

Present at the meeting were representatives of the owners and Charles Chree Doig, an architect practicing in the nearby town of Elgin, which was at the centre of a major expansion of malt whisky distilling operations during the closing decades of the 19th century.  

By that time, blended Scotch had increased in popularity to a dramatic extent, and Speyside was blessed with supplies of barley, fine distilling water, peat and access to a network of railway lines connecting the area to the blending centres of Perth, Edinburgh and Glasgow to the south. 

While at Dailuaine, Doig sketched a design for a new style of malt kiln chimney, which was destined to replace the rotating, fluted ‘Cardinal’s hat’ structures then in use at Scottish distilleries and copied from the hop-drying oast houses of southern England.  

Fitted to the roofs of distillery kilns, where ‘green’ barley was being dried at the end of the malting process, their function was to draw air up through the layer of barley spread out on the kiln haircloth, simultaneously drying it and imparting smokiness.     

Picture of a Four Round Kiln Oast House, East Kent.   

Doig’s suggested replacement for the ‘Cardinal’ hats’ was a capped chimney which attracted air from all directions to provide a better ‘draw’ for the fire beneath, carrying smoke away from the kilning barley rather than letting it linger there, and expelling it through a series of slatted vents. The result was a lighter, less peaty style of whisky and the likelihood of rain penetrating to the kiln floor was significantly reduced. The Doig design also had the advantage of being aesthetically very pleasing. 

Dailuaine Distillery, 1940s, courtesy of TuckDB's 

Writing in his essay Craigellachie (Landlocked, 2015), Dave Broom explores the relative smokiness of whiskies from the north-east of Scotland, noting the collective term for them had changed from the 19th century ‘Strathspey’ to ‘Glenlivet,’ and by the turn of the century, to ‘Speyside.’  

He observes that “There is difference between them all. Strathspey whiskies were old style, heavy, rich with the reek of the poit dubh [i.e. smoky illicit whisky] about them. Glenlivet whiskies pointed to a new style, lighter but still smoky, Speyside whiskies were lighter again, the influence of peat receding thanks to Doig’s new pagodas which drew smoke away from the kilning barley rather than letting it linger and add reek [i.e. smoke] but also because the railways brought in coal resulting in distillers no longer having to burn the fuel from the foggy loans.” 

However, when Alfred Barnard visited the district in the late-1880s, he recorded that every distillery bar two (Strathisla and Glen Grant) dried their malt over peat – and these two used a mixture of peat and coke or anthracite (known as ‘blind coal.’) 

Formally named the ‘Doig Ventilator,’ the innovation installed at Dailuaine was widely referred to as a pagoda, and continues to be so to this day, though to be strictly accurate, it is a cupola rather than a pagoda.  

Call it a pagoda, cupola or ventilator, the feature was not only a practical success but set a fashion whereby every self-respecting distiller during this golden age for the industry felt his premises incomplete without one atop each kiln. 

Doig’s signature design element helped him become the most in-demand distillery architect in Scotland, and though he was most prolific on Speyside, working on new-build projects and expansions of existing facilities, his designs embrace Highland Park on Orkney in the north, Talisker on Skye and Ardbeg, Caol Ila and Laphroaig on Islay in the west.  In total, he is credited with professional involvement in no fewer than 56 distillery projects. 

The distinctive pagodas at Ardbeg Distillery, courtesy of Visit Scotland.

Doig also took out a patent on a system designed to eliminate the possibility of explosions in distillery malt mills during 1893, and only too aware of the many distilleries that had succumbed to fires, he developed a ground-breaking fire extinguishing system. 

The man responsible for these achievements was born the son of a farm labourer at Lintrathen, near Kirriemuir in the county of Angus during 1855, with his unusual middle name being provided by the minister who baptised him, Charles Chree. 

The young Doig went on to earn his keep by tending sheep in the Strathmore Hills around his workplace, while his schooling included winning prizes for arithmetic. His academic ability was sufficiently impressive that he remained in school until the age of 15, and upon leaving, his career was settled when took a job in the Perthshire village of Meigle with architect John Carver. 

Doig married Margaret Isabella Dick when he was 25 years old, and the couple went on to have three sons. 1882 saw the family move north to Elgin, where Doig joined the practice of land surveyor Harbourne Marius Strachan Mackay. His abilities as surveyor and a particularly fine draughtsman led to a partnership in the firm, at a time when architects not only designed buildings but also solved engineering-related issues associated with the structures. 

By the time of his auspicious Daluaine site visit, Charles Doig was heading up his own practice, specialising in distillery-related architectural work, which included designing stills and other production apparatus. He was also called upon to ensure the optimum operation of the new distilleries he designed and deal with production problems that today would be considered far outside the remit of most architects. 

Working at the heart of the Speyside distilling community, it was not surprising that Doig become personal friends with distillery owners, including George Smith Grant of Glenlivet distillery. Indeed, Doig’s firm, which first carried out work for Glenlivet in 1890, was still undertaking commissions for the same distillery in 1955.  

Along with distilleries and associated structures, such as staff cottages, Doig was also architect for the Craigellachie Hotel and a number of grand houses in the area, including Rothes Glen, located between Rothes and Elgin, and built by Rosyth of Elgin in 1893. 

Craigellachie Hotel, Speyside.

Sadly, the original Doig Ventilator at Dailuaine was destroyed by fire in 1917, a year before Doig’s death at the age of 63. He died after taking ill while shooting on moorland near Forres with his son, Alexander, who worked at the War Office in London. 

Doig’s other sons, Charles Junior and Willie, had followed their father into the architecture profession, and the family practice was ultimately absorbed into that of Alistair J Morrison, whose principal, Willie Brander, donated 5,000 of the Doig family’s plans to Elgin Library for preservation and future study. 

Despite the breadth and depth of his work, Charles Doig became something of a forgotten figure in time, but Whyte & Mackay’s Master Blender Richard Paterson, a passionate historian, was determined to do something to rectify that situation. 

As he recalls, “By 2003 Doig had largely been forgotten, which seemed to me quite disgraceful. So that year I organised a walk from Fettercairn distillery, south of Aberdeen, to nearby Auchenblae, where the distillery Doig designed in 1896 is now a private house.  

“The walk was a round trip of some 23 miles, and the participants comprised an invited group of distillers, blenders and whisky-lovers, each of whom had been asked to bring a rare, signed bottle of whisky from their own distillery or company. These were subsequently auctioned at McTear’s in Glasgow, and fetched a total of £8,000. That money went towards the creation of a scale model pagoda head which was put on display in the Scotch Whisky Experience in Edinburgh, www.scotchwhiskyexperience.co.uk, to act as a permanent and richly deserved memorial to an unjustly neglected whisky icon.” 

Annandale Distillery, which still has an original Charles Doig pagoda roof, installed in the 1890s, courtesy VisitScotland.

The scale model was designed and built by Elgin-based coppersmith Andrew Scott, but before embarking on the full-size version, Scott created a smaller trial model, which subsequently spent many years on display in Richard Paterson’s Glasgow blending room. 

Then, in the summer of 2022, the Doig-designed Rothes Glen entered the story. The baronial mansion had been built to Doig’s design for descendants of Duncan Dunbar, who had created the largest privately owned shipping company in the world. Rothes Glen later served as a holiday home for Prime Minister HH Asqutih and as one of the best-known hotels in the area, playing host to high-profile guest including actors Gordon Jackson and Sean Connery. 

Then, in the summer of 2022, the Doig-designed Rothes Glen entered the story. The baronial mansion had been built to Doig’s design for descendants of Duncan Dunbar, who had created the largest privately owned shipping company in the world. Rothes Glen later served as a holiday home for Prime Minister HH Asqutih and as one of the best-known hotels in the area, playing host to high-profile guest including actors Gordon Jackson and Sean Connery. By 2022, Rothes Glen (www.rothesglenspeyside.com) had been extensively refurbished and reinvented as a whisky-themed, exclusive-use luxury property, with Damian Riley-Smith as its CEO. Riley Smith’s Paragraph Publishing company boasts Whisky Magazine among its range of titles, and a conversation between Messrs Riley-Smith, Paterson and Scott saw the ‘practice pagoda’ installed at Rothes Glen, where Doig’s original watercolour elevations and floor plans of the mansion are also on display. 

Picture courtesy of Rothes Glen House.

As Andrew Scott explained at the time, “A Doig-designed property seemed the perfect place for it. Charles Doig was best friends with my grandfather, and he lived less than half a mile from where I live in Elgin, so the whole Doig story is close to me. He revolutionised the whisky industry. In a way, the pagoda model has come home.” 

Picture courtesy of Rothes Glen House.

As for Damian Riley-Smith, Charles Doig is “One of the greatest influences on the world of whisky ever to live.” Not a bad epitaph for a one-time shepherd boy from the glens of Angus. 

Gavin D. Smith is a Master of the Quaich and one of the world’s leading whisky writers. He’s authored over 20 books and regularly contributes to top drinks publications.