Description

1846. Single and 2-storey, 3-bay villa with fine porch and interior. Bull-faced rubble with red bull-faced dressings; some brick margins to rear. Raked course at 1st floor. Stone mullions, stop-chamfered arrises and raked cills. Timber transoms and mullions to porch.

SE (PRINCIPAL) ELEVATION: symmetrical. Rectangular-plan porch to centre at ground with 8-light mullioned window on timber base, similar 6-light window on return to right and part-glazed timber door on return to left, plain frieze and cornice above giving way to swept roof with decorative ironwork brattishing; bipartite windows in flanking bays. Raked course above giving way to slightly reduced 1st floor with small centre window and flanking projecting bays each with single window breaking into gablehead.

NE ELEVATION: gabled elevation with steeply-pitched roof, window to left at each floor and further altered window to right at 1st floor over single storey piended wing with 2 windows and further window on return to left.

NW (REAR) ELEVATION: asymmetrically-fenestrated elevation with lower wing to left, 3 windows to right at ground and stair window to centre at 1st floor.

SW (UPPER ALLAN STREET) ELEVATION: window to right at each floor, and to left at 1st floor over modern conservatory.

Plate glass glazing in timber sash and case windows; coloured margined stair window and coloured glass toplights at porch. Grey slates. Shouldered and coped bull-faced stacks with cans. Overhanging eaves with plain bargeboarding; cast-iron downpipes with decorative rainwater hoppers.

INTERIOR: good decorative scheme in place including decorative plasterwork cornices, panelled timber shutters and timber fire surrounds with cast-iron grates, some with tiled cheeks and those to ground floor with flanking turned pillars. Decoratively-tiled hall floor and screen door with Pilkington glass leading to stairhall with decorative timber balusters and finialled newel posts to timber dog-leg staircase and landing. Drawing room (ground floor W) with fine inlaid timber to doors, shutters, skirting and fire surround. Bathroom with boarded timber walls.

BOUNDARY WALLS, GATEPIERS AND GATE: semicircular-coped rubble boundary walls with square-section, gablet-coped, bull-faced rubble gatepiers and decorative ironwork gate.

Statement of Interest

Formerly 'Corsehill', the house was built for a businessman who emigrated to Canada leaving a young girl, Gladys, in the care of a solicitor and housekeeper. She was unable to travel owing to poor health, but lived into her 90s, becoming a local character. Gorsehill was known locally as 'Gladys' House', and Gladys, always wearing black, would shake her umbrella at passing traffic. The house was sold in 1894 to Grace Campbell (or Grewar), owner of local fruit farms. Adam Grewar, fruit farmer, is the listed owner in 1919. At one time, the house boasted a timber bath.

External Links

• Historic Environment Scotland Listing
• Wikidata Q77779616

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

• 
  The Listed Buildings and Other Principal Structures at the Royal Gunpowder Mills Waltham Abbey
• 
  Historic Environment Law: Planning, Listed Buildings, Monuments, Conservation Areas and Objects, Supplement 2014
• 
  Hertfordshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Central Leinster: Kildare, Laois and Offaly (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of Ireland)
• 
  Staffordshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Development and Design of Heritage Sensitive Sites: Strategies for Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas