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Summary

Description

Complex building history (see NOTES). Originally plain neo-Jacobean house built to designs by William Burn, 1825-26, encompassed by later Tudor-Jacobean style additions by John Currie of Elie, 1879 (datestone above S entrance). Interior remodelled circa 1933-4 by James Gillespie and Scott.

Present house is irregular on plan, with a large square entrance tower to S (an 1879 addition) and projecting wing at rear (also an addition), main block 2-storey and basement and 3-storey in fall of ground. Grey sandstone rubble in courses, ashlar dressings. Asymmetrical elevations with canted and square projecting bays; Tudor style drip moulds to principal windows at main floor and at tower; coped parpapet with incised vertical flute detailing. Triangular wallhead pediments rising above parapet originally screened turrets with spirelet roofs, later removed (see NOTES). Crosslet loop, arrow slot and quatrefoil detailing at bartizans. Asymmetrical ridge and wallhead stacks, paired and tripled in neo-Jacobethan groupings. Plainer rear (N) elevation.

S (ENTRANCE) ELEVATION: 5-bay with 3-storey entrance tower projecting at centre; pointed segmental-arched doorpiece with timber neo-perpendicular fanlight (part of 1930s scheme of alterations); base course; string course at 1st floor level, stepped at returns of entrance tower, and with machicolated corbel course below on main elevations; single windows flanking tower at 1st, blind at ground. Outer canted bays, with mullioned N-facing windows, 5-light at left, 4-light at right.

Perp cusp-traceried square-headed windows at 1st and 2nd stages of tower: 2-light at 1sr, 3-light at 2nd. Asymmetrical top to tower: narrow bartizans corbelled out at each angle over octagonal angle buttresses, battlemented except at SE which has masonry spirelet. Roof steps down over right hand wing, possibly indicating a section of the pre-1879 house.

W ELEVATION: 3-storey; asymmetrical, stepped 2-bay elevation, bay on right slightly projecting with full-height canted bay. Recessed bay to left, with triangular-plan oriel at 1st corbelled out over wall buttress flanked by pair basement windows. 2-light window with triangulawallhead gablet above oriel to left. Battlemented and spireletted corbelled bartizans at angles rising above wallhead. Detached nook shaft with carved foliate capital at angle of right-hand projecting bay.

N (REAR) ELEVATION: plainer, long 2-storey elevation; gable with chimney-breast projecting slightly to right; wing projecting at centre; 3-bays deep(1879 addition); small single-storey porch in SW re-entrant angle with decorative cast-iron brackets. Cellar door below porch in basement. 2-bay to left of projecting wing, variety of openings with chamfered arrises; large 3-light arched stair window to right of projecting wing.

E ELEVATION: asymmetrical stepped frontage with variety of projecting rectangular bays and eventful roof-line with corbelled chimney-breast on left and curvilinear parapet screening slated spirelet on right. INTERIOR: retains much of 1930s refurbishment by Gillespie & Scott. Main staircase: timber, twisted balusters with bulbous knops at lower sections, 1879. Principal rooms at 1st retaining eleborate plaster cornices of 1879; bedrooms at 2nd with plainer straight coved ceilings and some lesser plaster cornices. Fine neo-Jacobethan timber chimney- pieces in 1st floor billiard room and dining room, that in latter with cherub detailing in frieze, simplified 1933 from 1879 one. Carolinian style chimney -piece of 1933 in drawing room. Timber bolection moulded doorcases.

Statement of Special Interest

John Currie's 1879 additions encase a pre-existing house, the main walls of which were retained at the core of the existing house. William Burn prepared designs for the house in 1825 (RIBA collections, see REFERENCES), but Currie's plan shows that these were reduced in execution. Burn's original design was 3 rooms deep on plan, the executed house only 2 rooms deep; the arrangement of principal rooms to the S (drawing room, vestibule, dining room) appears to follow Burn's proposed arrangement, the intention presumably being to build the house in 2 stages.

No elevations of William Burn's 1825 designs seem to survive and, confusingly, the house indicated on the 1st edition OS map of 1854 does not appear to adhere to the plan proposed by Burn. By 1854 the estate was established, with much the same general appearance at it has presently. The house is (1991) effectively the work of JOHN CURRIE whose substantial remodelling included tower, canted bays and projections, and spirelet roofs above all wallhead pediments, later removed during GILLESPIE & SCOTT'S 1930 ALTERATIONS for Major W C J Black (seen in a postcard in possession of the present owner).

1930s INTERIOR DECORATION seems to have been contracted to Dobie & Son of 94 George Street, Edinburgh.

GATELODGE, STEADING AND WALLED GARDEN (listed separately) are likely to date from early 19th century/- pre 1879 date.

References

Bibliography

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