Lord Glasgow was sound asleep and had to be awakened by his son David after fire erupted in a Victorian area of the historic castle as emergency crews rushed to the blaze.

Lord Glasgow said: 'The fire alarm went off and my son burst in and told me about the blaze. I was sound asleep at the time. We opened the door of the Victorian Room and it was just smoke; It was coming straight into your face, it was suffocating. I put a napkin to my mouth and we tried to throw buckets of water but it was to no avail, it was thick smoke, We were very concerned as we didn"t know how bad it was.