Description

Probably Peddie & Kinnear, 1874. 2-storey house in Italianate style. Dressed ashlar with polished channelled quoins. Base course, moulded 1st floor cill course and eaves cornice; architraved door and windows, keystoned segmental-headed and tabbed openings, bracketed window cills, stop-chamfered arrises and columnar stone mullions.

N (ENTRANCE) ELEVATION: tall projecting entrance bay off-centre left with deep-set 2-leaf timber door and semicircular plate glass fanlight in keystoned segmental-headed pilaster-flanked doorcase below ashlar balconette on scrolled consoles to window at 1st floor with rose carving to lintel, narrow window on return to right and left at ground. Bipartite round-headed under-stair window in bay to right below large similar window with keystones and consoled cill: further projecting bay to outer right with window with rose carving to lintel at centre and small blind tablet above also with rose motif. Single window in bay to left of centre at both floors; further projecting bay beyond with corniced windows at ground and window above with consoled cill and gabled dormerhead breaking eaves, rose in gablehead.

S ELEVATION: full-height corniced canted window to right of centre. Recessed lower wing to outer right with decorative early 20th century conservatory (see below) in re-entrant angle across ground floor, window at 1st floor to left and dominant chimney-breast at centre. Further single storey pavilion with 2 windows beyond on rising ground. Further canted window with corniced blocking course in bay to left of centre at ground, 1st floor with window near centre left and window to left, small blind tablet crowned with rose carving in penultimate bay to left and further window beyond.

W ELEVATION: 2-bay. Full-height canted window to right; projecting tripartite window with narrow windows on returns to left below stone balcony with coped stone balustrade and tripartite window with rose carving above centre light.

E ELEVATION: projecting single storey to centre and right, bipartite window to left below 1st floor window with gabled dormerhead breaking eaves, rose carving in gablehead.

Plate glass glazing in timber sash and case windows. Grey slates. Cavetto coped, grouped ashlar stacks with cans and plain barge boarding and moulded brackets to wide overhanging eaves. Cast-iron downpipes with decorative rainwater hoppers and fixings.

INTERIOR: Vestibule with niches flanking doorway; inner hallway with parquet floor and timber panelled scale-and-platt staircase with barley-twist timber stair rail, square newel-posts with elaborate urn and pendant finials; stairwell with embossed or low relief plaster frieze of Bacchanalian feast with cherubs; 1st floor landing panelled. Drawing room with panelled segmental-arched white marble chimneypiece, initials RW on keystone; dining room chimneypiece of similar design in black marble. Decorative plasterwork cornices to principal rooms, timber and marble fireplaces. Round-arched doorways with panelled soffits at 1st floor. Comprehensive offices, traditional storage and boarded dadoes, panelled window shutters and bar sash lifts.

CONSERVATORY: early 20th century. Dressed ashlar base; projecting finialled gable at centre with narrow cast-iron columns flanking door, arcaded windows below etched glass panels with square columns at corners and narrow columns. Pitched roof, decorative cast-iron ridges.

TERRACE WALLS, BOUNDARY WALLS AND GATEPIERS: bowed brick terrace walls on 3 levels. Old rubble with rounded rubble cope at boundary wall to road with partial hoop wire fence; high coped rubble boundary wall to S. Pyramid-coped square ashlar gatepiers.

Statement of Interest

Built for Rev Robert Wright (on retirement, not as a manse) on ground feued from the Earl of Morton in 1873. Dr Wright had to erect within 1 year "a good and substantial villa of value not less than ?1,000". The Italianate style was used widely by Peddie & Kinnear for villas and banks across southern Scotland and it is probable they were the architects. Currently MOD property (1994).

External Links

• Historic Environment Scotland Listing
• Wikidata Q17793758

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

• 
  Period property manual, victorian house manual 2 books collection set by ian rock
• 
  Building Small Projects (New Best of Fine Woodworking)
• 
  For the Record
• 
  Gwent/Monmouthshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of Wales)
• 
  The Shredded Chef: 120 Recipes for Building Muscle, Getting Lean, and Staying Healthy
• 
  Hertfordshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)