Description

Mid 19th century. 2-storey, 3-bay, piend and platform-roofed pair of semi-detached classically-detailed villas, No 20 with plaque recording birthplace of John Buchan (see Notes). Prominently sited on principal route into Perth town centre with paired entrance bay incorporating corniced and pilastered doorpiece forming porch below unusual square-plan bracketted tripartite window. Canted windows with engaged Doric columns at angles to outer bays. Stugged ashlar with broad polished pilaster strips, squared and snecked rubble with stugged quoins to sides and rear, and polished dressings. Deep base course, eaves cornice and stepped blocking course. Raised margins lugged at 1st floor N.

FURTHER DESCRIPTION: principal elevation to N with centre bay porch comprising deep-set part-glazed panelled timber door with 2-part fanlight at left and modern door with 2-part fanlight at right screened by later door, both below advanced tripartite window incorporating blind centre light and further narrow window to each return. Flanking bays each with dominant canted window at ground and single window at 1st floor.

6-, 9-pane and plate glass glazing patterns in timber sash and case windows. Grey slates. Dominant shouldered and coped stacks, that to E partly rebuilt in brick and with some cans, that to W truncated.

INTERIOR: some good interior detail retained including panelled timber shutters and plain and decorative plasterwork mouldings. No 18 with scroll-consoled arch and timber-balustered staircase, No 20 with curved staircase and decorative cast iron railings, etched glazing to stair light and marble fire surround with cast iron grate.

Statement of Interest

Numbers 18 and 20 York Place, situated on the main Glasgow road from Perth, form a well-detailed and little altered pair of early burgh villas with porch and tripartite window detailing unusual for a classical design. This, the westernmost, is the only survivor of three semi-detached villas appearing on the 1859 Ordnance Survey map with the former County and City Infirmary (now the A K Bell Library) by W M Mackenzie circa 1836 (see separate listing) immediately to the east. Its architectural detailing is broadly comparable with Mackenzie's Infirmary Lodge (now the office of the Perth and Kinross Heritage Trust).

The successful author John Buchan (1875-940), who became Baron Tweedsmuir in 1935, was born at No 20. His father was minister of the Knox Free Church of Scotland, and took over the Free Church in Pathhead, Kirkcaldy, before John's first birthday. Lord Tweedsmuir was made a Freeman of the Burgh of Perth on 29 September 1933.

List description updated as part of Perth Burgh resurvey, 2010.

External Links

• Historic Environment Scotland Listing
• Wikidata Q77780014

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

• 
  Hampshire: Winchester and the North (The Buildings of England) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  The Victorian House Manual (2nd Edition): How They Were Built, Improvements & Refurbishment, Solutions to All Common Defects - Includes Relevant ... ... Properties (Haynes Manual) (Haynes Manuals)
• 
  This Old House: Restoring, Rehabilitating, and Renovating an Older House
• 
  Dorset (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Yorkshire: York and the East Riding (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Herefordshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)