Description

Mid 19th century villa remodleed by William Leiper 1888 and 1891. 2-storey, asymmetrical Jacobean-style villa with crowstepped gables and crenellated parapet. Square, stugged and coursed cream and pinkish sandstone; ashlar dressings. Base course; bipartite and tripartite windows with ashlar mullions; chamfered arrises; moulded reveals; hoodmoulds; interrupted cill courses.

S (ENTRANCE) ELEVATION: gable entrance bay off-centre right (part of earlier villa), ashlar stair and base to gabled timber-framed porch with pointed-arch entrance, mock-half timber to gablehead, decorative bargeboard, lead-pane glazing in ogee-headed lights to side windows, green slate roof, red ridge tiles. Doorway with 2-leaf panelled doors. Window with stepped hoomould to 1st floor above. Some bargeboard remaining to apex and ends of gable. 2 taller 2-storey and attic bays to left, each bay with coped crowstepped gable and finialled apex. Bay to left of entrance with 2-storey canted window, bipartite window to gablehead. Bay to far left with mullioned and transomed window at ground, bipartite window at 1st floor, tripartite attic window to gablehead. Projecting full-height canted bay with coped crenellated parapet to outer left; hoodmould course at 1st floor with animal gargoyles; 2-2-2 mullioned and transomed lights at ground, 2-2-2 lights at 1st floor. Crenellated angle tower to right of entrance bay; bipartite window at ground and 1st floor to (S), canted return with chamfered angle to SE, narrow window at ground and 1st floor to E, corbel course with gargoyles, crocketted finials and date stone '1888' to crenellated parapet.

E (SIDE) ELEVATION: canted crenellated angle tower to left, gable bay to right with window at ground and 1st floor. Recessed bay to right, advanced squared window bay at ground with tripartite mullioned and transomed window, crenellated parapet. Window above at 1st floor.

Lower 2-storey wing to far right with projecting single storey lean-to block, gable dormerheaded window breaking eaves above. Service wing advanced to outer right.

N (REAR) ELEVATION: asymmetrical arrangement of windows and roof levels, modern escape stairs, single storey wing projecting off-centre left and service wing to outer left. Stair block off-centre right, advanced ashlar bay at ground with pair of mullioned and transomed windows, corbelled and overhanging bay above with timber mullioned and transomed stair window with 4-round-headed lights; doorway slapping on return to right.

W (SIDE) ELEVATION: slightly advanced 2-storey and attic gable elevation with 2-storey canted bay to centre with mullioned and transomed window at ground, tripartite window at 1st floor, tall parapet; tripartite attic window to gablehead. Coped skews to gable with finialled apex and ball finials to skewputts;

Variety of Lead-pane glazing to casement and fixed-pane windows with plain square-pane and geometric designs including honeycomb pattern. Some 4-pane sash and case windows. Grey slate roof; mostly corniced ashlar stacks, Jacobean stack with several polygonal shafts; moulded cans. Original rainwater goods.

INTERIOR: plastered ceilings and cornices to main rooms. Timber coffered hall with foliated bosses, floreate embossed wallpaper. Former drawing room to W with segmental-arched inglenook, wainscot with delicate carived panels, timber chimneypiece and overmantel with 3 round-headed niches, coffered ceiling with plaster decoration inlcuding acorn and grape/vine motifs, wide decorated frieze, lionhead corbels to cornice. Inglenook and strapwork plaster decoration to former billaird room at 1st floor; inglenook to attic room above, chimneypiece with blue and white Dutch tiles.

Statement of Interest

Formerly known as Clarendon House, now in use as a school. An interesting attempt by Leiper to create a Jacobean manor house for his client John Anderson, resulting in a rather hybrid design with the original mid Victorian villa peeping through the additions at odd angles. However the overall composition is an handsome and imposing element in Upper Helensburgh.

External Links

• Historic Environment Scotland Listing
• Wikidata Q17777056

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

• 
  Historic Environment Law: Planning, Listed Buildings, Monuments, Conservation Areas and Objects by Harwood, Richard (2012) Paperback
• 
  Kent: West and the Weald: The Buildings of England (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  The Listed Buildings and Other Principal Structures at the Royal Gunpowder Mills Waltham Abbey
• 
  Gloucestershire 2: The Vale and The Forest of Dean: Vale and Forest of Dean Pt. 2 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Bedfordshire, Huntingdonshire, and Peterborough (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Listed Buildings: The Law and Practice of History Buildings, Ancient Monuments and Conservation Areas