Description

George Gilbert Scott, circa 1858. 2-storey, irregular L-plan, plain Jacobean former rectory (now subdivided) with multi-gabled roof and gabled dormers breaking eaves. Squared, snecked whinstone with droved yellow sandstone ashlar dressings. Chamfered margins. Long and short quoins.

FURTHER DESCRIPTION: Roughly 3-bay principal (SE) elevation with recessed, shouldered-arched, timber-boarded door with wrought-iron hinges within gabled porch to recessed bay to right; gable to centre; dormer breaking eaves to left. 2 gabled bays to front (Old Rectory) part of secondary (SW) elevation, with tripartite, stone-mullioned window to left and canted window to right at ground floor; central wallhead stack between gables. Secondary (Riversdale) entrance in advanced, gabled bay to centre of NE elevation; 2-leaf, timber-panelled door with fanlight and flanking window to left within shared plain architrave; verandah supported by single central column linking central bay to advanced, gabled former coach house to outer right; later-20th-century, single-storey, cement-rendered extension to left.

Predominantly 12-pane glazing pattern in timber sash-and-case windows. Grey slate roof with metal ridge. Sawtooth skews with gabletted skewputts. Ashlar-coped stacks with circular clay cans. Predominantly cast-iron rainwater goods.

INTERIOR: Flagstone floor to central hall. Central timber stair with cast-iron balusters, polished timber handrail, and rectangular skylight. Predominantly 4-panel timber doors; some timber-panelled shutters to windows. Cornices. Some marble and some timber chimneypieces.

GATEPIERS AND BOUNDARY WALLS: 3 square, chamfered, tooled yellow sandstone gatepiers flanking entrances to driveways of Old Rectory and Riversdale on Slitrig Crescent. Whinstone rubble boundary walls with pointed yellow sandstone ashlar cope surrounding garden of Old Rectory and to NW and SW sides of garden of Riversdale; yellow sandstone rubble wall with pointed ashlar cope to NE side of Riversdale drive and garden.

Statement of Interest

An extensive, well-proportioned, mid-19th-century former manse with Jacobean detailing, which retains its relationship to the adjacent and near-contemporary St Cuthbert's Episcopal Church, both having been designed by the prominent English architect George Gilbert Scott (1811-78).

Scott became noted as an outstanding ecclesiastical architect, and was responsible for churches and associated buildings throughout England as well as abroad, in addition to other building types such as workhouses and educational establishments. He is best known as the architect of London's St Pancras Station Hotel (1868-74). His first Scottish commission was St Paul's Church, Dundee (1853), and he was later the architect of St Mary's Episcopal Cathedral, Edinburgh, and of buildings for Glasgow University. He worked predominantly in the Gothic idiom befitting his High Church leanings.

The manse is not shown on the Ordnance Survey Town Plan of 1857, although the associated church is, having been built in that very year. The manse was presumably built very shortly thereafter.

The building was subdivided circa 1955, with 'The Old Rectory' comprising the principal rooms (and the main body of the house), and 'Riversdale' containing the former servants' accommodation. It has been very little altered externally, with the exception of the small addition to the north-east, the replacement of some windows to the rear elevation, and the replacement of some stacks. List description revised and category changed from B to C(S) following resurvey (2008).

External Links

• Historic Environment Scotland Listing
• Wikidata Q56635167

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.

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