Description

Robert Snodgrass, mason, 1821 (dated). 2-storey, 3-bay villa; base course; outer pilasters supporting eaves course, cornice and blocking course (painted '1821' to centre); pilastered doorpiece with entablature and projecting tablet above; door (plywood facing) and fanlight within recessed round-arched surround; architraved surrounds to windows. Non-traditional (cement) render to façade; random whinstone rubble to side and rear with sandstone dressings.

NW (REAR) ELEVATION: 3 stories; irregular fenestration; small later lean-to at centre.

Late 20th century glazing replacing traditional sash and case timber windows. Grey slates; straight skews; stone ridge; corniced ashlar end stacks; hexagonal clay cans. Cast-iron rainwater goods.

OUTBUILDING: small, 2-storey pitched roof building set back to R of house with cast-iron railed forestair to upper floor; timber boarded doors to ground and 1st floor of N elevation; window to ground and 1st to S elevation. Random whinstone rubble with sandstone dressings; remains of harled surface. Straight skews; slate roof; cast-iron rainwater goods.

INTERIOR: hall with panelled door (9 fields); consoled arch and moulded acanthus ceiling rose; plain cast-iron railings to stair with mahogany handrail. 1st floor drawing room: good polished black slate chimneypiece (later brick insert) with flanking paired, engaged reeded columns, corner roundels and reeded lintel; flanking cupboards; all doors panels within reeded architraved surrounds with corner roundels and cornices; delicate bead mouldings to fielded panels; egg and dart cornice with fruit motif frieze.

Statement of Interest

One of a number of early 19th century villas in Eglinton Street, the façade has a later render but there may be polished ashlar beneath or alternativley it could originally have had a stuccoed finish. With its smart classical vocabulary No 64 is a relatively sophisticated villa, the doorpiece, end pilasters and entablature being the principal features. The plan was drawn by Robert Snodgrass, mason, who most likely built other contemporary villas in the town. Unfortunately the original glazing has been replaced at some point in the late 20th century (a photograph of 1979 shows the 12-pane sash and case windows intact). The house has a finely detailed 1st floor drawing room in the typical Regency manner. The chimneypiece and architraves have the hallmark Regency reeding and corner roundels. The room has formal symmetry and a window overlooking both the front and the rear. This was obviously the most formal room in the house where the doorpieces are elaborate; elsewhere in the house there are simple, plain architraves. The doors here are the only ones to have fine mouldings to the shallow fielded panels. These patternbook features are of the kind advocated by, for example, the architect and surveyor W F Pocock in his Modern Finishings for Rooms, published in 1811 and widely available as a source.

The terraced garden to the rear is similar to many of those villas on the north side of Eglinton Street. There is a low wall with ashlar piers and steps separating the ground close to the house from that further down the slope. Their large gardens and open vistas to the rear distinguish the villas on this side of Eglinton Street from those opposite which have smaller more enclosed grounds. The land was originally feud to John Crawford, thread manufacturer, in 1820. The Crawford family had established a thread factory at Crummock in Beith in 1775 and in 1836 James Crawford of 37 Eglinton Street (separately listed) established a flax spinning mill and workers' housing in what was to become known as Barrmill.

External Links

• Historic Environment Scotland Listing
• Wikidata Q17829180

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  [(Shropshire)] [By (author) Nikolaus Pevsner] published on (January, 1958)
• 
  Bedfordshire, Huntingdonshire, and Peterborough (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  This Old House: Restoring, Rehabilitating, and Renovating an Older House
• 
  Period Property Manual (New Ed)
• 
  Pevsner's Architectural Glossary (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Introductions)
• 
  Sussex: West (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)