Ha Ha, Glenormiston House, Innerleithen, Scottish Borders

Description

Early 19th century garden wall and ha-ha; cottage for William Chambers, 1870. Single storey and attic, 3-bay rectangular-plan vernacular gardener's house with single storey, single bay wings and high shouldered stacks. Whitewashed rubble cottage with sandstone angle margins and sandstone windows dressings (droved margins and lintel with chamfered arrises and slightly projecting sills), all with droved tabbed quoins (also whitewashed); rear elevation of cottage plain rubble. High lime and whinstone garden wall with sandstone ashlar quoins and copes, Gibbsian entrances, ball finialled angle piers and matching ha-ha (constructed from stone taken from Ormiston Tower).

GARDEN COTTAGE:

W (PRINCIPAL) ELEVATION: stone step leading to central entrance door with tabbed quoins, droved margins and chamfered arrises, carved upper angles WC to left (William Chambers) and 1870 to right, former 2-leaf timber boarded door (now single leaf) with plain rectangular fanlight above; large windows with chamfered arrises and droved margins flanking door.

N ELEVATION: to right and centre, ashlar window surround with chamfered arrises; to left, single storey flat-roofed squared porch with semi-glazed door in right return, door surround chamfered to match windows of main house, adjoining garden wall to left return.

E (REAR) ELEVATION: plain rubble elevation with ashlar window surrounds with chamfered arrises to left and right, 3 roof lights to attic; later corrugated-iron lean-to adjoining to far left.

S ELEVATION: ashlar window surround with chamfered arrises to left; single storey piend-roofed square outhouse (coal/log shed) below stack with timber boarded door.

2 and 4-pane glazing in timber sash and case windows. Pitched grey slate roof with lead ridging and flashing; some later single pane roof lights to rear elevation. Painted cast-iron rainwater goods. Large shouldered ashlar wallhead stacks to S and N with moulded neck copes and octagonal paired cans (one may be original as it matches style and material of stack).

INTERIOR: room layout as built; skirting boards and interior woodwork survives, as does fire surrounds.

GARDEN WALL AND HA-HA: high lime stone rubble garden wall with segmental copes running S from SE of steading then running SE toward stables; round angle piers with round stone copes and stalked ball finials; arched entrances with projecting keystones and impost stones, timber 2-leaf timber panelled door (one entrance now blind). Arched ha-ha with segmental copes running from W of main house and arching S in front of Garden Cottage.

Statement of Interest

Not to be confused with the original Glenormiston, a mansion that was the principal building on the estate until it was demolished in 1956. The smaller farmhouse, further up the hill at the rear of the site, has been adapted to form the principal dwelling, and taken over the name. The whole estate was formerly known as 'Wormiston' and 'Ormiston'; it belonged to the seventh Earl of Traquair, whose trustees sold it for £8400 to John Scott, writer to the Signet. Scott improved the land dramatically, extending cultivation and planting larch belts. His heirs sold it in 1805 to William Hunter (farmer, Liberton Grange near Edinburgh) for £9910 who renamed the estate "Glenormiston". He continued to fashion fields, raise plantations and build the farm steading and the now demolished mansion. After Hunter's death, the estate was sold for £24,000 to William Steuart who again continued improving the estate, spending £10,000 on works. More land was drained, pavilion wings added to the mansion house and gardens laid out. William Chambers bought the estate in 1849 for £25,500 and created a new entrance to the property with its own lodge. He was a publisher and Lord Provost of Edinburgh. It is sited around 4 1/2 miles from Peebles. He improved the land further and altered the farm steading, then known as 'Glenormiston Grange'. He subscribed to new methods in husbandry and had the steading harled and whitewashed. It was regarded as one of the best adapted modern husbandry farms in the county, and to complement it he built a number of labourers cottages. By 1864, the planting on the estate was maturing and it was regarded as "valuable", a sharp comparison to when the area had started as an open hillside labelled the "ten pound land of Ormiston". The ha-ha is all that remains of the once extensive kitchen garden; this was found to the rear of the slip garden, with the walled garden sited to the south on what is now a field; it (and the garden wall, see below) is constructed from stone taken from Ormiston Tower, the ruin of which lay on the former site of the walled garden. The cottage has the initials of William Chambers in the lintel (he owned the estate at its time of construction). The high wall with the ornate gateway divided the garden domain from the farm and the backroad that led to the stables and the workers' cottages on Velvet Hall Strip. Listed as a good example of a later 19th century gardener's cottage and wall and ha-ha from the earlier designed landscape.

External Links

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