Gamekeeper's Cottage, The Glen, Traquair, Scottish Borders

Description

1888 for Sir Charles Tennant (executed by estate joiners and masons). 1?-storey, 3-bay, rectangular-plan, picturesque-style former Gamekeeper's cottage with attached single storey, pantry/store to rear; advanced gabled porch and canted moulded bay rising into squared upper storey with chamfered base angles. Separate single storey, 9-bay rectangular-plan hybrid classical / picturesque style kennel block with occulused gable to right. Cottage of coursed and squared whinstone with sandstone ashlar dressings with chamfered arrises to most; similar materials to kennels with vermiculated sandstone ashlar quoins.

COTTAGE:

SE (PRINCIPAL) ELEVATION: 2 flights of 8 stone steps with low ashlar wing walls leading to cottage. Advanced stone entrance porch with moulded shouldered doorway containing 2-leaf timber boarded door with ornate wrought-iron scrolled hinged and matching door furniture, inset moulded date stone (1888) to gablehead, arched barge boarding with king-post finial terminating in spike. To right of entrance, tripartite window with painted mullions and sloped sills, overhanging eaves with exposed timber rafters and set back tripartite dormer with barge boarding matching that of porch. To left of entrance, gabled end with projecting full-height bay: canted bay window to ground floor (with single lights to side cants and tripartite window to centre) moulded string course leading into squared upper level with chamfered angles to base and tripartite window to centre; barge boarding matches those already described.

SW ELEVATION: single storey wallhead to right with very small window; to left, 2-storey gable with windows to each floor.

NW ELEVATION: to right, gabled end (very low wallhead on left) with timber boarded entrance door to ground floor left and tripartite window with painted stone mullions to right and small window to gablehead; to centre, very low wallhead with narrow window breaking eaves (forming catslide dormer); above right, bipartite catslide dormer with exposed timber rafters. Adjoining ancillary building (see NW ELEVATION) projecting to ground floor left.

NE ELEVATION: main house to left with advanced stepped stack with ashlar quoins to centre and small window to ground floor right, overhanging eaves with exposed purlins and decorative arched timber bargeboards and turned finials. To right, adjoined single storey ancillary building with timber boarded doors to left and centre, gabled end to right with 3 stone steps leading to boarded timber door; overhanging eaves with exposed rafters and plain bargeboards to gable end; right return obscured by later timber garage.

KENNELS:

SE (PRINCIPAL) ELEVATION: single storey, 9-bay range divided into 4 separate dog runs to front: coursed whinstone rubble front wall with vermiculated dressings to entrances, walls terminating in chamfered coping (dividing walls of ashlar), very high plain wrought-iron railings with matching gates to all, stone flagged dog yards; the first 3 kennels having window and door fenestration; 4th kennel being 3-bay with central door and flanking windows, gablehead above with central oculus; overhanging eaves with exposed timber rafters. Gabled ends to SW and NE (with gablehead stack).

Plate-glass glazing in timber sash and case windows to most; some 4-pane glazing in timber sash and case windows to smaller attic windows, plate glass to rear attic dormer; 3-pane glazing in timber sash and case windows to kennel (2-pane upper sash with plate glass lower sash). Pitched slate roof with lead ridging and flashing to cottage; pitched slated dormers (one catslide dormer to rear). To kennel: pitched slate roof with pitched ventilation dormers to front with slated roofs and glazed in-fills; later single pane Velux roof light to far right of SE elevation. Painted cast-iron rainwater goods to cottage with decorative hoppers; overhanging eaves on kennels in lieu of rainwater goods. Coursed ashlar gablehead stacks to cottage with moulded neck copes and tall yellow cans with ornate neck; short coursed ashlar stack to NE gable of kennel block with single can.

INTERIORS: cottage with original room plan, fireplaces and original timber work (including doors and skirting boards) and staircase; still in use as residential accommodation. Kennels retain original stone interiors, runs, yards and railings.

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. Tennant continually improved the estate landscape (1860-1890) and was responsible for the building of the school, farm, workers' and estate cottages, walled kitchen garden and kennels making the Glen virtually self-sufficient. The cottage is of high status and would probably have been the head gamekeeper and his family's house (they too would probably have been employed on the estate). To the rear is an intact kennel block with runs, which is still in use for its original purpose; it is similar in style to other estate buildings and is fortunate still to have the original plain railings and gates separating the runs. To the N of this block was a pheasantry, which would probably have been tended by the gamekeeper, whilst the gun dogs would have resided in the kennels. There is a now derelict set of kennels near the estate farm but they are no longer of the quality we see here. Originally the cottage windows were painted a dark colour; the timber work of the porch and at the gableheads is green and this is likely to have been the colour used on all estate woodwork. This building follows a distinct style employed throughout the estate. There was a plentiful amount of whinstone on site in the nearby quarry and it is believed the estate masons followed a plan that was adapted to fit the needs of a specific building (for example most estate cottages follow the same general plan but are enlarged or minimised depending on how many they were to house). This cottage is unusually ornate when compared to other residential estate buildings. It a high status building with particular attention paid to the decoration on the bargeboards and an advanced canted bay. It is the first building seen after the lodge and with its fairly open aspect is designed to add to the surrounding landscape. Listed as a good example of a large residential estate building with kennel block and for their importance within an intact later 19th century estate (other estate buildings are listed separately).

External Links

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