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Summary

Description

James Gillespie Graham, 1835, incorporating circa 1670 Whitehouse mansion. 3-storey, L-plan accommodation block with square-plan pend tower. Pink and cream sandstone rubble, heavily pointed. Raised windows surrounds; chamfered reveals; quoin strips.

W WHITEHOUSE LOAN elevation: pend tower with 6-bay range to right and 3-bay range to left, forming boundary to Whitehouse Loan. Architraved round arch to pend with heavy rope-moulding and knot label stops; modern gates and wrough-iron tympanum; single windows to 3 storeys above; deep cornice; ogival fishscale roof with scalloped lead flashings and iron finial. 6-bay range to right; single window at second floor in advanced and gabled bay to outer right; single windows at 1st and 2nd floors in remaining bays; 2nd bay advanced and gabled; 4th and 5th bays gabled; pediments with stone finials to 1st and 3rd bays. 3-bay range to left; 2 single windows breaking eaves in stone finialled pediments in 2nd and 3rd bays; gabled timber dormer between bays; single window and string course with single window breaking eaves in piend-roofed dormerhead above in advanced 1st bay; segmental-arched doorway to outer left.

E ELEVATION: advanced 3-storey wing to outer left adjoining 4-storey re-entrant tower 4-bay range, pend tower and 2-storey 3-bay range. Round-arched doorway with chamfered margins and hoodmoulding to 2-bay E elevation of advanced wing; panelled door; single windows above and in remaining bay to right. Single lights to each face and stage of tower in re-entrant angle. Bipartite windows in 1st bay of 4-bay range; single windows in remaining bays. Pend tower as described above. Pedimented doorway in 2nd bay of 3-bay range; studded door; plate glass fanlight; single window above. Full-height canted window in 3rd bay; facetted pyramidal roof. Bipartite window at gorund in 1st bay; single window offset above. Pedimented dormers above each bay (3 above canted bay).

S ELEVATION: 3-bay block adjoining school (see separate listing) toouter right. Ground floor not seen 1991. 3 basket-arched windows at 1st floor (2 pedimented). N ELEVATION: 3-bay wing recessed and in 2nd bay. Single storey flat-roofed addition to 1st bay; single windows above. Crowstepped gable to N elevation of W range.

FORMER DAIRY: single storey, rectangular-plan dairy, linked to conventual buildings and chapel (see separate listing). 2 gabled bays to N and S; gablehead bellcote and bell to W; deeply corniced polygonal stacks. Plate glass sash and case windows to W; predominantly 12-pane sash and case windows elsewhere. Grey slate roof; corniced gablehead and ridge stacks; moulded eaves guttering; gabletted crowsteps and skewputts to N elevation of W range.

INTERIOR: not seen 1991.

SUNDIAL: in garden to rear of conventual buildings and former school; early 18th century baluster type with cut-out hemispheres.

GATEPIERS AND BOUNDARY WALLS: W range from part of boundary to Whitehouse Loan; high coped boundary walls to Whitehouse Loan, Stratheran Road, and thirlestane Road; basket-arched pedestrian gateway to Whitehouse Loan; coped ashlar gatepiers with ball finials to Whitehouse Loan. Waterleaf capitals of unknown origin in use as garden ornaments.

Statement of Special Interest

A group with other Gillis College buildings. The original White House is marked on Kirkwoods Map of 1817 and illustraded in the anonymous A History of St Margaret's Convent as a rectangular-plan structure at right angles to Whitehouse Loan, corresponding to the S wing of the existing conventual buildings. Changes in the masonry suggest that Gillespie Graham extended the house to the E and linked it to his new range along Whitehouse Loan. Grant traces the owners back to 1671, when one James Christie inherited the house from his father. Principal Robertson wrote his History of Charles V and John HOme wrote Douglas here, according to Grant. The Whitehouse Loan range was later modified by the addition of a canted window to the N of the pend tower. In 1986 the ursuline sisters moved to a neighbouring villa, St Margarets Tower in Strathearn Road (see separate listing), and Gillis College was established as a seminary in the former convent buildings.

References

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