Description

Circa 1880. Range of domestic buildings and workshops forming rough U-plan and comprising 2-storey, 3-bay main house; single storey and attic, 4-bay pair of cottages with dormers; large, roughly L-plan range of single storey workshops; smaller detached outbuildings to rear.

MAIN HOUSE: 2-storey, 3-bay, gabled house with some stone-mullioned bipartite windows. Squared, snecked sandstone. Raised quoin strips. Regular fenestration with raised margins and projecting cills. Non-traditional 1940s front door to centre flanked by bipartites; bipartite window with gabled dormerhead breaking eaves at first floor to right. Regular fenestration to rear with tall bipartite stair window at centre. Coped stacks with yellow clay cans. Slate roof. Interior modernised circa 1947.

COTTAGES: single storey and attic, 4-bay range with gabled, bargeboarded dormers breaking eaves at first floor. Roughly coursed squared sandstone with ashlar dressings. Regular fenestration with projecting cills. Lean-to outshot at rear containing entrance doors and outhouses. Corniced ridge stacks with assorted clay cans.

WORKSHOPS: L-plan, piend-roofed range of groundsmen's and works' offices and workshops. Squared, snecked sandstone with ashlar dressings. Irregular fenestration with projecting cills; some stone-mullioned multi-light windows to E and S elevations. Advanced, crowstep-gabled porch to E elevation with 2-leaf timber-boarded door in left return.

OTHER ANCILLARY STRUCTURES: small, piend-roofed out building to rear of cottage. Garden terrace retaining wall to rear and side (W). Boundary wall to rear and sides.

Statement of Interest

A-Group with Mugdock and Craigmaddie Reservoirs, Craigholm, Mugdock Cottage and North Lodge (also known as Craigmaddie Lodge).

A late 19th century complex of housing, workshops and offices located on high ground overlooking Mugdock and Craigmaddie reservoirs. Barrachan has historic importance as an ancillary of the Glasgow Corporation Waterworks (see below). It appears to have contained accommodation and offices for the groundsmen who maintained the waterworks and grounds around the reservoir, and was therefore a key component of the site. It makes a positive contribution to the Conservation Area around these important reservoirs.

Mugdock reservoir was opened in 1860 as part of the first phase of the Glasgow Corporation Water Works that brought water down from Loch Katrine. Craigmaddie reservoir, which is immediately adjacent (though entirely separate) from Mugdock, was opened in 1897 as part of the duplication scheme. By the 1870s the area around Mugdock reservoir had been landscaped for use as a public park, reflecting the pride the Water Board and general public took in this internationally-renowned engineering achievement. Within this area a number of residences were built to house the numerous employees who were responsible for the smooth-running of the system and maintenance of the grounds.

Glasgow's Lord Provost, Robert Stewart (1810-66) was the driving force behind the implementation of a municipally-owned water scheme to provide clean water to Glasgow's rapidly increasing population. Loch Katrine was identified as a suitable supply and after some objections from various parties, an Act of Parliament authorising the scheme was passed in 1855. The scheme was built in two main phases following this Act and another of 1885. The 1855 scheme was opened by Queen Victoria in 1859 and was fully operational by 1860.

The Loch Katrine water works was admired internationally as an engineering marvel when it was opened in 1860. It was one of the most ambitious civil engineering schemes to have been undertaken in Europe since Antiquity, employing the most advanced surveying and construction techniques available, including the use of machine moulding and vertical casting technologies to produce the cast-iron pipes. The scheme represents the golden age of municipal activity in Scotland and not only provided Glasgow with fresh drinking water, thereby paving the way for a significant increase in hygiene and living standards, but also a source of hydraulic power that was indispensable to the growth of Glasgow's industry as a cheap and clean means of lifting and moving heavy plant in docks, shipyards and warehouses.

Listed as part of the thematic review of Glasgow's water supply system (2008).

External Links

• Historic Environment Scotland Listing
• Wikidata Q77781182

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.

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