Description

Later 19th century farmhouse built onto early 19th century cottage and steading. Single storey and attic, 3-bay rectangular-plan farmhouse with long single storey rectangular-plan steading at rear forming long T-plan. House harled and whitewashed; steading whitewashed rubble.

SW ELEVATION: single storey and attic. Boarded door at centre, letterbox fanlight; flanking windows. Gabled dormerheads symmetrically disposed above.

SE (ROAD) ELEVATION: gable of farmhouse to left with lower wing adjoining earlier building. Long elevation, originally with cottage at left end, outbuildings to right; now 8 bays outer right end of steading collapsed. Small plain openings; ridge stacks at left end.

NW (REAR) ELEVATION: rubble with lower single storey gabled wing to outer right.

Windows now all boarded. Grey slate roof, some repatching.

Statement of Interest

This modest farmhouse and steading is listed for its historical connections with the innovative aviator Percy Sinclair Pilcher. Low Auchencail was the site from which Pilcher made his later flying experiments using the Bat, a glider built by Pilcher and his sister Ella in lodgings in Glasgow?s West end. The method of launching was to run downhill against the wind and take short jumps and Low Auchensail?s prominent location made this possible. He had earlier carried out gliding experiments at Wallacetown Farm in Cardross. Pilcher was killed in his glider "The Hawk" in 1899 at Stanford Hall, Kent.

External Links

• Historic Environment Scotland Listing
• Wikidata Q56647883

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

• 
  A Buying and Owning a Listed Building: A Brief Guide
• 
  Historic Environment Law: Planning, Listed Buildings, Monuments, Conservation Areas and Objects, Supplement 2014
• 
  Liverpool: Pevsner City Guide (Pevsner Architectural Guides: City Guides)
• 
  Listed Buildings: The Law and Practice of History Buildings, Ancient Monuments and Conservation Areas
• 
  ENGLAND GUIDE TO POST WAR LISTED: A Guide to Post-war Listed Buildings
• 
  Dorset (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)