No 2 Sawmill Cottages, The Glen, Traquair, Scottish Borders

Description

Glen Estate masons and joiners, circa 1857. Pair of attached 1?-storey, 2-bay, rectangular-plan, picturesque style worker?s cottages with overhanging eaves, exposed rafters and plain bargeboards to gables. Locally quarried coursed whinstone rubble with cream sandstone ashlar long and short quoins and dressings with chamfered arrises.

S (PRINCIPAL) ELEVATION: Number 1: to right, 2-leaf timber boarded entrance door within plain margined surround with central long quoins, bipartite window to left with timber mullion set within ashlar surround (sill and lintel advance beyond jambs); to attic, set-back pitched timber dormer (aligned with ground floor window) with boarded gable, plain barge boards and bipartite window with timber mullion. Number 2: as Number 1 but plan mirrored. Gabled ends to returns with window to ground floor (adjacent to rear) and bipartite window to gablehead, projecting verges finished with plain barge boarding.

2 and 4-pane glazing in timber sash and case windows (to dormers and main house respectively); timber gabled dormers to attic. Pitched slate roof with metal ridging. Painted cast-iron rainwater goods. 2 tiny ashlar stacks with projecting neck copes and paired cans (stacks appear roofline but likely to be gablehead due to overhanging roof) and similarly styled shared stack to centre of roofline with 4 cans.

INTERIOR: original fireplaces and timber work (including doors and skirting boards); near original room plans with later modernisation; timber staircases.

Statement of Interest

Part of an A-Group with all other Glen estate buildings. Sited near the centre of the estate and built into a sloped site. 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 a school, farm, worker's and estate cottages, walled kitchen garden and kennels making The Glen virtually self-sufficient. In 1897, there were approximately 105 estate workers doing a range of jobs; including maids, cooks and servants within the house and gardeners, foresters, shepherds, carters, cattlemen and gamekeepers on the estate. The estate had its own masons and joiners, as well as its own whinstone quarries (remains of one are sited to the NE of these cottages). It is likely a plan would have been drawn up (either from a pattern book or by an unknown architect) for an estate worker?s cottage and this would have been replicated (and adapted) where needed on the estate by the estate team. Many of these cottages retain their original elevations and features. These worker?s cottages may have been home to either the estate joiners or foresters and their families, and it would lead credence to the modern name Sawmill Cottages. They are sited at the core of the estate in the part that resembles a village. Behind these cottages are a derelict structure that is marked on early maps as 'kennel'; it could be that it became obsolete for its original purpose (as 2 later purpose built kennel blocks were constructed) and it may them have been used for timber and joinery work. This earlier pair of cottages bears remarkable similarities to the larger and later Anvil Cottage adjacent (and listed separately). The estate functioned like a community until the 1920s. The Tennants lost money during the Wall Street Crash and this had a knock on effect, as estate workers lost their job and tied housing. The numbers on the estate swelled again during World War II, when 48 landgirls came (4 married Glen men and never left). Listed as a good example of a pair of picturesque vernacular cottages within an intact later 19th century estate (other estate buildings are listed separately).

External Links

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