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Summary

Description

Earlier 19th century villa with mid to later 19th century additions, almost certainly by Alexander Thomson. 2-storey, asymmetrical, rambling-plan villa with Tudoresque details. Whinstone and sandstone rubble with harl pointing, polished sandstone margins and dressings; chamfered reveals. Base course, string courses, eaves moulding, quoin strips.

NW (MAIN) ELEVATION: 3-bay gabled block with porch in re-entrant angle to outer right. 2 gabled, bipartite dormerheads symmetrically disposed in bays to outer left; large square projecting porch at centre ground, ashlar on rubble base, lead coping, stop-chamfered arrises, full-height timber transomed and mullioned windows, steps up to former door on left return; 3-centre arched gate to rear of house attached to outer left. Broad gable to right, canted window at centre ground, ashlar transom and mullion; tripartite window, hoodmould, trefoil in triangular plaque above; gabletted finial. Tripartite porch in re-entrant angle to right, octagonal piers with sawtooth polygonal conical caps, ball finials, ashlar step, balustrade; 3-centre arched arcade on colonettes, door at centre, half-glazed, multi-paned with decorative diamond glazing at centre; flanking leaded windows (stained glass), blind trefoil decoration above, eaves band with gabletted details. Narrow blind gabled bay to outer right, blind 3-centre arched window with pierced trefoil in arch-head, ball finial, cast-iron cresting.

SW ELEVATION: asymmetrical, original house to left with later 19th century 2-bay block advanced to outer right. Right return of porch to outer left, tripartite window, gable to right, square ashlar coped window at ground, bipartite transomed and mullioned window; tripartite window at 1st floor, stepped hoodmould. Later 19th century, piend-roofed block to outer right, broad chamfered sides; quadripartite window occupying most of ground floor, stepped hoodmould; paired bipartite dormerheaded windows symmetrically disposed at 1st floor.

SE (REAR) ELEVATION: later 19th century block to outer left, various openings at ground, dormerheaded bipartite at centre, window to left now blocked; 2-bay right return, door, 3 windows at ground, 2 narrow dormerheads (4-pane over 6-pane plate glass sash and case windows), tall, coped stack at centre, octagonal cans. Rear or earlier house, cement-harled with sandstone margins and dressings, some blocked openings, narrow dormerheaded windows, 2-over 3-lying pane glazing.

Plate glass timber sash and case windows on main elevation, 4-pane over 6-pane sash and case, 2-over 3-lying pane on rear. Grey slate roof, ashlar coping to skews and skewputts, sandstone corniced apex stacks, circular cans (some replacement cans).

INTERIOR: oak stair, gabletted newel post with ball finial, panelled timber under stair; most of rest of building modernised.

BOUNDARY WALL AND GATEPIERS: Alexander Thomson, 1863. Stepped whinstone and sandstone rubble boundary wall, block whinstone coping; narrow, yellow sandstone margined arrowslits regularly disposed. Whinstone drum pier with sandstone cornice, large, bell-shaped cap with ashlar finial. Gatepier to left has been removed.

Statement of Special Interest

Ferndean Villa is the property of the MOD and is now a training school. The land on which Ferndean was built was feued by the developer Thomas Forgin. The house dates from this period but was enlarged in the later 19th century. The house was lived in by the publisher Robert Blackie who commissioned Alexander Thomson to design the garden gates in 1863. The gates were illustrated in Blackie?s VILLA AND COTTAGE ARCHITECTURE; the gates at Craigrownie Church Hall are very similar to those illustrated and are also more intact and were either based on the Ferndean gates or designed by Thomson. The property appears also to go by the name Ferndene.

References

Bibliography

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