Description

Alexander Johnston, 1875-77; builder Robert Laing. 2-storey, 6-bay, rectangular-plan, piend and platform-roofed Renaissance house with small enclosed inner courtyard. Stugged ashlar with banded quoin strips. Base and cill courses, dentilled eaves cornice and blocking course. Architraved, pedimented windows, keystones, bracketted cills. Stone margins.

SE (PRINCIPAL) ELEVATION: regular fenestration to 4 centre bays, windows to ground with semicircular-pedimented windowheads to centre and triangular to outer bays, 1st floor centre bays under broad pediment. Outer canted bays with tripartite window to each floor and flanking urn-finialled, full-height banded quoin/pilaster strips.

NE (ENTRANCE) ELEVATION: 7-bay asymmetrical elevation. Bay to left of centre with mutuled cornice to balustraded porch with steps flanked by stone dies, square outer and Ionic inner columns, keystoned segmental-headed doorpiece with 2-leaf panelled timber door and deep semicircular fanlight, single windows to returns; bipartite above giving way to broad finialled pediment. Further pedimented bay to outer left with tripartite at ground, balustrade and relief carved roundel flanked by single windows at 1st floor. Advanced bay to outer right with 2 blinded windows at 1st floor and wallhead stack. Single and bipartite windows to remaining bays, those to ground corniced and those flanking porch with pedimented wide-centre tripartites.

NW (REAR) ELEVATION: unadorned elevation with variety of single and bipartite windows.

Plate glass glazing in timber sash and case windows; multi-pane glazing pattern to stair windows. Grey slates. Cavetto coped ashlar stacks with some cans. Cast-iron downpipes with decorative rainwater hoppers and fixings.

INTERIOR: fine original decorative scheme in place. Fine decorative plasterwork cornices and ceilings to principal rooms and stair hall. Keystoned, segmental-arched marble fireplaces to drawing room and anti drawing room with panelled dividing doors; carved timber fireplace to dining room (former library). Front hall with corniced doorpiece and steps leading to galleried stair hall with paired composite columns, fine carved (fumed oak?) chimneypiece with inset armorial panels and heavy semicircular pediment. T-plan, cantilevered, timber-balustered staircase with paired bipartite stair windows. Boarded dadoes, bell board and stone stair with cast-iron balusters to offices at rear.

Statement of Interest

The lands of Errol passed from the Hays to Sir Patrick Ogilvie in 1648, and on to Sir Thomas Blair of Balthaycock in 1652. A Crown charter of 1662 erected the lands to a burgh of barony, called the Barony of Errol. The Hays of Errol lost the estate in a gambling debt during the 17th century. By 1741 a London banker, George Middleton, was in residence and probably responsible for the 1745 building destroyed by fire in 1874, it was similar in appearance to Glendoick House, a simple rectangular-plan, symmetrically-fenestrated, piend-roofed house. After passing to the Allen family, Errol Park was purchased, in 1873, by Mr Francis Molison of Dundee for the reported sum of ?118,000. The above mentioned fire led to Mr Molison commissioning the architect Alexander Johnston based at 20 Reform Street, Dundee (drawings in present owners possession) to design the new house. These drawings show a balustraded 3-stage tower to the SE angle. Elizabeth Frances Molison succeeded in 1877, she had earlier married William Ogilvy Dalgleish (later Sir). The couple gave generously to the village of Errol, their donations including the village water supply commemorated in the water fountain at the Cross, and Victoria Hall. Subsequently Brigadier-General J D Heriot Maitland succeeded to Errol Park. A photograph of Errol Park House appears in the Mackenzie & Moncur 'Electric Lighting Catalogue' of circa 1910. Errol Park Policies include Boundary Walls, East Lodge, East Lodge Gates, Folly, Gardener's Cottage, South Lodge, Stables, Steading, Walled Garden, West Gate and West Lodge all listed separately.

External Links

• Historic Environment Scotland Listing
• Wikidata Q17569451

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

• 
  Derbyshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Yorkshire West Riding: Sheffield and the South (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Churches: An Architectural Guide (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Introductions)
• 
  Historic Environment Law: Planning, Listed Buildings, Monuments, Conservation Areas and Objects, Supplement 2014
• 
  Huddersfield in 50 Buildings
• 
  Devon (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)