Description

Circa 1852 for William Chambers. Single span, classical style pilastered bridge. Squared and coursed local whinstone with pink sandstone voussoirs, band course and moulded parapet copes.

N & S ELEVATIONS: round arched span with droved pink sandstone voussoirs and blind spandrels, square piers to flanks of arch and as terminating piers, all with sandstone band course; moulded stone coping to parapet wall with matching square moulded copes to higher pier heads. Carries tarmacadamed vehicle driveway.

Statement of Interest

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". This bridge is one of the older surviving landscape features of the mansion. The bridge is found on the formal drive opened up in the early 1850's by William Chambers. Along with the new lodge (listed separately) it gave a formal grace to the approach of the mansion. The stream it spans used to run further down to the River Tweed, but it is now caught in a pond to the south of the bridge. The drive travelled east to the mansion, not north as it does now towards the farmhouse. The bridge is listed as a good example of a private estate bridge of the 19th century, of unusual design, and retaining all its original features.

External Links

• Historic Environment Scotland Listing
• Wikidata Q77778939

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

• 
  Cumbria: Cumberland, Westmorland and Furness (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Cork: City and County (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of Ireland)
• 
  Listed Buildings: The Law and Practice of Historic Buildings, Ancient Monuments and Conservation Areas
• 
  Gwent/Monmouthshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of Wales)
• 
  Somerset: North and Bristol: The Buildings of England (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Cambridgeshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)