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Summary

Description

1893. 2-storey with 1st floor breaking eaves, 3-bay, T-plan Arts and Crafts villa (converted to care home, late 20th century) with L-plan stable block to E, located directly upon Antonine Wall (SCHEDULED ANCIENT MONUMENT). Coursed, tooled red sandstone ashlar to principal elevation; squared, coursed and snecked, stugged red sandstone rubble to sides and rear; coursed red brick stable block. Splayed ashlar base course; large ashlar quoins; overhanging bracketed eaves with carved timber eaves course; bargeboarded gables. Segmental-arched red sandstones ashlar openings; stone cills and polished ashlar margins to sides and rear. Prominent breaking-eaves, half-timbered, jettied dormers to N with transomed and mullioned timber openings; terracotta ridge tiles.

N (PRINCIPAL) ELEVATION: central segmental-arched entrance, 2-leaf timber panel door, plain fanlight; canted 3-light window to right; stone mullioned, tripartite window to left. Large jettied, gableheaded dormers to outer bays; right dormer supported by window with 3-light, oriel to centre on 3 timber brackets; left dormer supported on rounded timber corbels, 4-light window with advanced pediment on carved timber brackets. Small, 2-light, gabled dormer to centre, pagoda-shaped finial to gablehead with terracotta ridge tiles.

E ELEVATION: 4 bays (arranged 2-2). Advanced 2-bay gabled end to right with large window to ground floor; smaller window off-centre left (possibly later). Window to ground floor far left, doorway to ground floor right with small, square window to left. Raised eaves level to 2 left-hand bays; 2 breaking-eaves, gabled wallhead dormers with single windows; plain bargeboards to gabled eaves.

S (REAR) ELEVATION: 3 bays. Plain advanced gabled bay to centre.

W ELEVATION: 2 bays. Advanced gable of main house to left; doorway to ground floor left, shallow segemental-arched opening with patterned, leaded glass fanlight and 20th century access ramp. 2-storey bay to right; bipartite window to ground floor; gabled, wallhead dormer to 1st floor with bi-partite window.

Plate glass and 4-pane, timber sash and case windows; patterned, stained, frosted and leaded glass to upper sashes. 10-pane, lying-pane sash and case windows to stables. Green slate to pitched roof; piended dormers to villa and stables. Ashlar, coped gablehead stacks to E, W and S of villa; conical clay cans. Red brick, capped gablehead stacks to N and S of stables; additional, tall stack to N side of W outshot; 3 original conical clay cans; some late 20th century conical cans.

INTERIOR: converted to use as Barnardos Care Home offices and accommodation, late 20th century. Entrance through main double storm-door into vestibule; secondary door into hallway, 2-leaf timber panel and glazed door with decorative stained glass to doorhead and fanlight, 3-panel sidelights to flanks with similar panelling and stained glass. Main hallway/stairwell: doorways to left and right leading to principal rooms (right doorway blocked, room now accessed from remodelled rear of house); carved timber, classical pedimented architraves to doorways; timber panelled timber dado to lower walls with simple classical cornice, panelling to stairwell and 1st floor; dentilled cornice. Dog-leg principal staircase; elaborately carved timber balustrade; projecting, rounded tread to bottom step; lattice-patterned timber boarding to underside of staircase return flight. Tall newel with urn shaped finial to bottom step; further newels to half landing and 1st floor landing; balusters similar in style to newel; carved timber, ball-shaped pendant to underside of 1st floor landing; half pendant brackets to flanking walls. Tall archway to back wall of half-landing; panelled plasterwork to intrados with applied plaster brackets to flanking walls. 1st floor landing subdivided left to right by modern timber and glass partition; cornice detailing from hallway repeated; large, 4-sided pyrimidical stained glass rooflight to centre of stairwell.

STABLES: W (PRINCIPAL) ELEVATION: 3 bays, arranged 1-2. advanced, gabled W outshot of L-plan to left with 2 bays set back to right. Central doorway; large carriage doorway flanking to right with steel beam lintel; single windows to 1st floor bays. Bipartite window off-centre right to ground floor of gabled bay with ashlar mullion; single window to 1st floor above. S ELEVATION: 3-bay W outshot to left with advanced, blind gable of S jamb to right. Double doorway to centre W jamb with large, double door carriage opening to right; single, rectangular window to left. Breaking eaves, gabled dormer to 1st floor centre; single window (now blind with brick infill). E ELEVATION: single storey; Antonine Wall banked up to 1st floor level to right. 3 bays; windows to left and off-centre right; bipartite window to far right.

Stables converted to care home accommodation, access not obtained, 2004.

GATEPIERS: Tall, large square-plan red sandstone ashlar gatepiers; low splayed base, moulded cornice, large caps with piended corners.

GARDEN STEPS: flight of stone steps from driveway to NE corner of house; plain, low parapet with 2 terminating ashlar square-plan piers to top, ogee-moulded cornice with pagoda-shaped flat topped caps, stylised thistle ball finials with leaf-shaped carvings to sides.

Statement of Special Interest

Watling Lodge is a finely detailed and well-preserved example of a late 19th century Arts and Crafts villa, with the added importance of being constructed directly upon one of the best preserved stretches of the Antonine Wall (SCHEDULED ANCIENT MONUMENT), from which the villa takes its name. The lodge is built upon the site of a Roman fortlet that was found during the preparation of the foundations for the lodge in 1893. This fortlet is thought to have guarded the gateway of a split in the Antonine Wall, allowing a road running from the south to pass into Camelon, then a significant Roman settlement, and then N to a fort at Braco. This is one of the few known breaks in the wall, making it a place of some importance. The road passing through was known as the Watling Road to the Romans, giving the lodge its name. The villa was built for a Mr Fairley, a chemist in Falkirk who leased the entire Watling Lodge stretch of the wall. Watling Lodge is within the boundary of the SCHEDULED ANCIENT MONUMENT, but is excluded from the scheduling, and the Antonine Wall to either side of the Lodge is in the care of Historic Scotland. Both the main house and the stable block are today used as the Barnardos Cluaran Project.

Watling Lodge lies within the amenity zone for the Antonine Wall recommended in D N Skinner The Countryside of the Antonine Wall (1973), and which will form the basis of the buffer zone, yet to be defined, for the proposed Antonine Wall World Heritage Site.

References

Bibliography

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