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Summary

Description

Andrew Heiton, dated 1892; internal alterations 1954. Substantial 3- and 4-storey with basement and attic, 4-bay Scots Baronial style towering mansion house (converted to offices). Narrow bands of snecked and stugged red Dumfriesshire sandstone with droved and polished ashlar dressings. Base, band and roll-moulded eaves courses. Round- and segmental-headed doors; crowsteps; corbels; voussoirs; hoodmould; roll-moulded surrounds; stone mullions.

S (PRINCIPAL) ELEVATION: 4-storey crowstepped bay to left of centre with dated round-headed doorcase and single windows; stair tower (see below) to outer left; lower 3-storey bay to right with oval gunloop to ground and single windows above, bay to outer right corbelled to small round tower above ground.

SW TOWER: 4-stage conical-roofed circular stair tower with dated cast-iron weathervane and 3 small windows rising through each stage, those to W breaking dividing courses with additional window at ground.

E ELEVATION: 2 crowstepped, 4-storey bays with single and bipartite windows, that to right projecting with chamfered left angle corbelled to square over 2nd floor, and altered stone-roofed oriel adjoining modern extension at outer right. Corbelled angle tower to outer left, see above.

W ELEVATION: tall tower-house like bay to left of centre with projecting stepped chimney breast, small round-headed attic window above and window punctuating each floor (including basement) immediately to right, bartizan with 3 tiny windows to outer right. Lower centre bay with oversailing stair to ground floor door at left, single windows to each floor, stone pedimented dormer breaking eaves to left above with diminutive bipartite dormer to right. Round tower to right, see above.

N ELEVATION: further asymmetrical elevation including advanced tower-house bay to right with variety of elements including corbelled 3-light oriel in gablehead, 4-stage tower with caphouse, single and bipartite windows.

Mainly 4-, 6- and 9-pane glazing patterns to upper over plate glass lower sashes in timber sash and case windows. Grey slates. Coped ashlar stacks with ashlar-coped skews and moulded skewputts. Cast-iron downpipes with decorative rainwater hoppers and fixings.

INTERIOR: fine period decorative schemes in place. Some panelled soffits, brass sash lifts, timber fireplaces and moulded cornices retained. Fine panelled hall with fluted pilasters, alcoves flanking screen door, canopied stone chimneypiece and 1915-1919 memorial plaque. Panelled dadoes and shutters to spiral stone stair. Meeting room to 1st floor N with stone chimneypiece, flanking clustered columns and overmantel with mutuled cornice; tabbed architraves, panelled shutters, decorative plasterwork to ceiling and cornices with thistle and rose motifs. Billiard room (NW attic) with panelled dado, hammerbeam-type roof with tie-beams at broad top-lit sections; stone chimneypiece with clustered-column shafts, cast-iron inset and tiled cheeks. Timber spiral stair to billiard room with elaborately carved newel finial, and small timber-lined attic.

WALLED GARDEN: rectangular-plan walled garden with high, flat-coped rubble walls to N and W and slated, lean-to ancillary buildings to N. Stepped, brick-lined wall to N with small segmental-headed windows to S elevation. Low coped rubble walls to E with small circular, pyramidally-coped squared rubble gatepiers and hooped ironwork gate; ha-ha style wall to S.

GATEPIERS AND GATES: 2 pairs of square-section, red sandstone gatepiers with linking boundary walls. Inner piers 3-stage with square-section base giving way to rounded 2nd stage corbelled back to square at 3rd stage with cornice, shallow crenellations and low pyramidal cope. Outer piers with semicircular-moulded coping to each face. Decorative cast-iron gates and linking boundary walls with moulded ashlar coping and long and shortwork quoins.

Statement of Special Interest

Property of the Scottish Hydro-Electric Board. Built for Lieutenant Colonel George Glas Sandeman who purchased the Port-na-Craig Estate in 1890. The Sandemans were port and sherry merchants in the Perth area since the 18th century. Captain George A C Sandeman inherited the property in 1905, but upon his death in 1915 during WWI, his cousin and uncle by marriage Mr Alastair C Sandeman inherited. From 1915 to 1918 the house was a British Red Cross auxiliary hospital where 926 patients were cared for. Colonel and Mrs Kinglake Tower succeeded to the property soon after 1928, and made it their home until 1946 when it was sold to the North of Scotland Hydro-Electric Board, at which time the name reverted to 'Port-na-Craig' (from 'Fonab'). Conversion to the district control centre for Hydro-Electric Power Stations included insertion of a large central pillar. The control room opened on 1st November, 1957 and was superseded in 1971 by a purpose built extension. Subsequent internal alterations saw 'the first fully integrated Transmission and Distribution Control Centre in the UK' introduced in November 1994. Landscaped setting.

References

Bibliography

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