Garden Cottage, The Glen, Traquair, Scottish Borders

Description

Glen Estate masons and joiners, circa 1885. 1?-storey, 3-bay, L-plan, picturesque style former gardener's cottage (later Post Office) with gabled entrance canopy, overhanging eaves with exposed rafters and plain bargeboards with braced drop finials to gables; slightly later single storey single bay extension in re-entrant angle. Locally quarried coursed whinstone rubble with cream sandstone ashlar long and short quoins and dressings with chamfered arrises.

E (PRINCIPAL) ELEVATION: to centre, gabled timber porch with heavy uprights to front, in-filled braced gablehead with king-post finial, exposed rafters to sides with timber lattice and balustraded in-fill to lower half; timber boarded door with wrought-iron hinges and similarly styled door handle; to left, 1?-storey gabled end with tripartite window to ground floor and slightly smaller tripartite window to ?-storey; timber purlins and plain boarding to gablehead; single window to right of porch.

S ELEVATION: single storey elevation with tripartite window to right with central timber boarded entrance door with narrow window to right, left of elevation blind.

W & N ELEVATIONS: To N, advanced gabled end with paired windows to centre and to left return, pitch-roofed attic dormer with slated cheeks. Early single storey, regularly fenestrated gabled extension in re-entrant angle.

Mostly lying-pane timber casement windows of varying size including 9-pane sliding casement window (arranged 3-3-3) to gablehead of main elevation with similar 12-pane window below (arranged 4-4-4), 12 lying panes in timber sash and case windows to end gables, 8-pane casement window to W with 4-pane timber sash and case window to rear. Graded slate roof with overhanging eaves, exposed timber rafters, plain barge boarding and timber drop brace finials; lead ridging, flashings and valleys. Painted cast-iron rainwater goods. Tall ashlar chimney stalks with moulded neck copes (most plain cans now missing) on gablehead and ridgeline bridge bases.

INTERIOR: original room layout with plain timber skirting, doors and stairs.

Statement of Interest

Part of an A-Group with all other Glen estate buildings. The Glen estate can be traced as far back as 1296 when Sarra of the Glen swore allegiance to King Edward I of England. The estate remained in the family's hand until around 1512, when the grounds became fragmented and parts were sold to neighbouring landowners and families. By the 1700's, there were 2 main parts of the estate, Easter and Wester Glen. Easter Glen was sold to Alexander Allan (an Edinburgh banker) in 1796 for #10,500. At this point, the house was a fairly small plain farmhouse. His son, William Allan (Lord Provost of Edinburgh) was responsible for enlarging and extending the house, the architect being his friend William Playfair (see The Temple, listed separately); even after improvement it was still not regarded as being fit for a landowner's principal residence. The 3,500-acre estate was bought in 1852/3 by Sir Charles Tennant, owner of the chemical works of St. Rollox, Glasgow, for #33,140. The house was by then outdated and not suited to modern family life; he commissioned David Bryce to design a baronial style house, to which a tower (also by Bryce) was added in 1874. Charles Tennant was a well-known patron of horticulture and the fine arts as well as a successful industrialist. He improved the estate landscape (1860-1890) and was responsible for the building of a school, farm, worker's and estate cottages, walled kitchen garden and kennels making the Glen virtually self-sufficient. Bryce designed some of the terraces whilst 2 landscape gardeners remained on hand and over saw the laying out of the terraces and planting. . It is believed that part of the NW wall (including the gatepiers and gates) were part of an older enclosed garden on the site; earlier maps show an enclosure with rounded ends directly opposite the farm steading. To the SE of this, a plantation area ran NE-SW before becoming a grassed area, which terminated in the arched and buttressed SE wall. Around 14 gardeners were employed to tend to the kitchen, walled flower and formal gardens. A team of horses was used to cut the grass and they wore special shoes so as not to damage it as they went around. There were an impressive amount of glasshouses, of which only the remains of 2 survive and one complete one with a potting shed range adjoining to rear. The intact glasshouse faces SE and has a row of adjoined sheds to the rear, which would have been used for potting and storing bulbs and tools. The sheds over look a cobbled frameyard (where the frames still survive). Opposite this a row of garden bothies (Nursery Cottages, listed separately with Silo View) which formerly provided accommodation for the gardeners. A newer cottage, Silo View was added to the NW in 1903. Garden Cottage follows the glen estate style and is sited to overlook the gardens. When it was built, it replaced a similar shaped structure a little to the N. It is within sight of the major glasshouse complex (now the pool), the formal terraces surrounding the house and within easy reach of the nursery garden. It has not always remained a gardener's house, during the 20th century the house was used for a time as The Glen post office. The house has reverted back to residential use and has become known as Garden house. The remaining gardens are less formal today but still add a fine aspect to the landscape. Listed as an important example of estate architecture within a Bryce and Lorimer designed landscaping and for its importance near the centrepiece of an intact later 19th century estate (other estate buildings are listed separately).

External Links

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