Wester Kittochside Farm, East Kilbride, South Lanarkshire

Description

FARMHOUSE: dated 1783, with kitchen addition, 1906. 2-storey and attic 5-bay classical L-plan symmetrical farmhouse with oculus to pediment spanning slightly advanced central bays. Stugged cream sandstone ashlar with polished ashlar dressings. Base course; dentilled eaves course. Lugged and keystoned margins to windows; long and short rusticated quoins. Small triangular-plan farm garden with simple stone square-plan gatepiers sited to SW of house.

S (PRINCIPAL) ELEVATION: pitch-roofed entrance porch addition (glazed superstructure over stone) at ground in bay to centre with 2-leaf timber panelled doors masking lugged and keystoned doorpiece; deep-set small-pane door with letterbox fanlight; window at 1st floor; oculus to pediment above. Window at each floor in bays flanking. Window at each floor in bays set back to outer left and right.

E (SIDE) ELEVATION: single advanced gabled bay to left with attic widow offset to right of gable; gablehead stack above. Window (blocked) to lean-to scullery addition to internal angle of L in bay to centre. Window at ground in bay to right.

W (SIDE) ELEVATION: attic window offset to left in gabled bay to right; gablehead stack above. Window at 1st floor in bay to left.

N (REAR) ELEVATION: boarded door to lean-to addition to internal angle of L to centre. 2-bay gabled elevation advanced to right: window offset to right at ground; window offset to left at 1st floor; gablehead stack above. Window at 1st floor in bay set back to left.

Predominantly 12-pane timber sash and case windows. Grey slate roof; stone skews; block skewputts; corniced and panelled stacks; cast-iron rainwater goods.

INTERIOR: encaustic tiled hall; dogleg timber stair with turned timber balusters and timber handrail; architraved timber panelled doors; floreate cornices to main rooms; plain cornices elsewhere; some purpose-built fitted furniture including arched display cabinet; timber partition walls to attic; bracketed fire surround to 1st floor drawing room with carved rococo cartouches to overmantle mirror; hand painted tiles depicting street scenes inset around grate; other period chimneypieces.

STEADING: between circa 1860 and 1895. Squared and snecked part-rendered sandstone farm buildings with ball-finialled gables, forming courtyard to rear (N) of main house, (byre/dairy and threshing barn as M-plan group to NE angle of courtyard); grey slate roofs; some small rooflights; cast-iron rainwater goods. Pair of further detached boarded and corrugated-iron Dutch barns to NW of courtyard.

BYRE AND DAIRY, (FORMING E RANGE): sliding boarded door to N gable; blank S gable with gablehead stack; regularly disposed ventilation holes along each long side; boarded door and trough courtyard side. Interior: concrete-lined floor with central slurry channels/greips; concrete cattle divisions with cast-iron tether poles; exposed timber roof. THRESHING BARN, (FORMING N RANGE): sliding 2-leaf boarded doors below round arch to E gable; 3 ledges (dovecote?) to gablehead above; blank W gable; 2 regularly disposed boarded doors with various narrow slit openings to S (courtyard) elevation; boarded door to right with blocked window to left to N elevation; slit openings between. Interior: timber threshing equipment largely intact; floor divided at W end with timber partitioning.

CENTRAL, LINKING RANGE (rebuilt 1930s): 2-bay, gabled, rectangular-plan linking range to internal angle; window in each bay to S elevation; boarded door, offset to left, of gabled (W) elevation.

STABLE, (FORMING W RANGE): SE angle abutting main house. Roofless lean-to spanning ground to S gable; small window to gable above. Lean-to spanning ground to N gable; small window to gable above. 2 evenly disposed sliding boarded doors to E (courtyard) elevation with 2 windows between; small centred window set high to W elevation; lean-to privy block (1906) with corrugated-iron roof to left with timber-panelled door to S return; square-plan ridge ventilator. Interior: timber stable divisions with upswept upper borders; timber hay racks; timber wall-mounted saddle racks; wooden privy seats to addition.

DUTCH HAY BARNS: earlier segmental-arched roofed, corrugated-iron barn with iron ribs and Y supports, bearing manufacturer?s plaque, ?A & J MAIN, Glasgow and London?; later, pitched-roofed boarded barn along south side with cast-iron columnar supports; lean-to addition to E.

GATEPIERS AND BOUNDARY WALLS: rendered low coped quadrant walls to square-plan piers sited to SE of main house; band course below cornice; large ball finials raised on swept supports; steel railings lining drive. Square-plan sandstone ashlar piers sited to N of house; stepped panel to main face; cornice; shallow pyramidal cap.

Statement of Interest

The home of the Reid family for ten generations and gifted to the National Trust for Scotland in 1992 by Mrs Reid, Wester Kittochside is a substantial farmhouse/mansion with well-preserved farm buildings. A grandiose design for a farmhouse, its symmetricality, rusticated quoins and dentilled pediment giving it the air of a miniature country house. Much altered over the years with major works carried out in 1906 and then in 1995 by the National Trust for Scotland. This collection of late 18th century buildings represents an important and unique survivor of a traditional farm of the period which saw the horse give way to the tractor. The iron workings of the original horse mill, which powered the threshing barn adjacent, still remain, as does a good deal of the threshing machinery inside. The stable contains an interesting timber ladder, arched footholds cut from solid timber replacing more usual turned rungs. The byre and dairy complex are good survivors of their type with fixtures and fittings intact. The original 110-acre farm is of cultural significance too, with relics of hawthorn boundaries and drystane dykes demarking the separate agricultural zones found in the runrig system. The small triangular garden survives, having provided the household with fruit and vegetables. Architectural unity is attained by the repetition of the ball finials on the main gatepiers as well as on the farm gables, and features of interest to note on the farmhouse include its keystoned window margins and panelled stacks. The Reid family worked Wester Kittochside from at least 1567 until the early 1970s. Perhaps because of this prolonged ownership by a single family, Wester Kittochside has escaped the massive changes forced on other farms by the pressure constantly to produce more. Technological advances and economic pressure saw the small farm replaced by larger, drastically altered units. Grain dryers or tractor machinery and accommodation saw the demolition of many original buildings; larger field systems necessitated the destruction of old field boundaries and any surviving signs of older cultivation skills. Wester Kittochside, however, retains these older features, and the buildings, together with the surviving field layout, provide an important and uniquely complete three dimensional diary of the agricultural revolution in Scotland.

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