8 Balcarres Road, Former Honorable Company of Edinburgh Golfers, Including Boundary Walls, Musselburgh, East Lothian

Description

J Dick Peddie and C G H Kinnear, 1865 with later additions. 2-storey, 3-bay, semi-detached, rectangular-plan piended roof former golf club house with single storey entrance porch to side sited overlooking the Musselburgh Links Golf Course. Coursed rubble with advanced ashlar quoins and advanced stop chamfered window margins. 1st floor band course. Symmetrical façade with central canted and slated window flanked by tall windows at ground with rounded, bipartite windows with stone consoled cills and shallow finialled above. Rendered late 20th century single storey addition to N of rear elevation.

4- and 6-pane timber sash and case windows to ground with plain glazing pattern to upper floor. Piended slate roof with bargeboards on decorative bracketed overhanging eaves and ball finials to gablets. Shouldered wallhead stack with plain cans, cast iron rainwater goods.

INTERIOR: (seen 2013) large principal former clubroom across front of ground floor overlooking golf course with canted bay window, recesses to rear and decorative egg and dart and florette style cornicing. Timber panelled shutters. Small turned side stair with cast iron banisters leading to simple floor plan at first floor. Interior remodelled to form children's nursery accommodation in the late 20th century.

BOUNDARY WALLS: low rubble, ashlar capped walls to front (E).

Statement of Interest

8 Balcarres Road is a good example of an early purpose built golf clubhouse building overlooking the Musselburgh Links golf course and demonstrating good stone detailing in Italianate style designed by one of Scotland's leading 19th century architectural practices. This former clubhouse was built in a modest domestic style which was common to early club house buildings. It is particularly important because of its early date. Constructed in 1865 it is one of the earliest surviving purpose built golf clubhouses.

Balcarres Street used to be known as Golf Place due to the number of clubs that played the Musselburgh Links. In the later 19th century the links became quite crowded and clubs relocated to other courses. The Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers moved to a new club house at Muirfield in Gullane in 1891, vacating 8 Balcarres Road.

The practice of Peddie (1824-1991) and Kinnear (1830-1894) was a prominent and successful Edinburgh based practice which dominated the architectural field in Scotland from the mid 19th century to the early 20th century. They were responsible for innumerable high profile public commissions such as hospitals and poorhouses (St Cuthbert's Craiglockhart) and city improvement schemes such as the building of Cockburn Street from 1859. The firm also had extensive private clientele and designed banks (Bank of Scotland), country houses and insurance company premises such as for the North British Mercantile. The firm was also responsible for many important church commissions such as St Mary's Cathedral on Palmerston Place Edinburgh (1872).

The firm built the golf club house in 1865 but are noted to have 'rebuilt' it ten years later in 1875. It is likely that the 1875 date refers to an extension which is now the linked adjacent building to the south which has very similar detailing although is clearly, by the roof detailing, not part of the original design. The 1893 Town Plan of Musselburgh shows the club occupying both buildings although other records show that the club had vacated and moved to Muirfield by 1891.

The 'Articles and Laws in Playing Golf', a set of rules whose principles still underpin the game's current regulations, were penned in 1744 by the Company of Gentlemen Golfers (now The Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers). Improved transport links and increased leisure time as well as a rise in the middle classes from the mid 19th century onwards increased the popularity of the sport with another peak taking place in the early 1900s.

The sociable aspect of the game encouraged the building of distinctive clubhouses with bar and restaurant facilities. Purpose-built clubhouses date from the mid-nineteenth century onwards, previously clubs had used villas or rooms in an inn near to the course. Earlier

clubhouses were typically enlarged in stages as the popularity of the game increased throughout the 19th and 20th century. The sport has grown further in popularity in recent years, especially overseas in places such as USA and Canada.

At the time of writing (2013), the governing body for amateur golf in Scotland, the Scottish Golf Union (SGU), reported around 550 golf courses in Scotland, representing a total membership of approximately 236,000 golf club members. Interestingly, 7 of the 14 venues where the Open Championship is held are in Scotland. Scotland has produced a number of famous golf sporting personalities ' historically, Old Tom Morris (1821-1908) and James Braid (1870-1950) were the pioneers of their time.

Building currently in use as a children's nursery (2013).

Listed as part of the sporting buildings thematic study (2012-13).

External Links

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