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Summary

Description

Probably late 18th century with late 19th or early 20th century additions and possibly incorporating earlier fabric. 2-storey and attic, 3-bay, rectangular-plan gabled farmhouse with single-storey and attic wings adjoining each gable and central projecting entrance bay with round-arched stair window to principal elevation. Harled rubble with red sandstone margins. Regular fenestration to principal elevation; irregular fenestration to rear. Doorway in return elevation of projecting entrance bay. Gabled wing adjoining right (N) gable; piend-roofed outbuilding with 2 timber-boarded doors adjoining left gable; 20th century conservatory abutting.

Predominantly 12-pane glazing in timber sash and case windows. Gothick-arched glazing pattern to stair window. Flat-roofed dormers. Ashlar-coped raised skews. Rendered gablehead stacks with thackstanes and short clay cans. Graded grey slate. Predominantly cast-iron rainwater goods.

BOUNDARY WALLS: enclosing garden to E and S. Rubble with rubble coping.

Statement of Special Interest

Plenploth is a good traditional farmhouse occupying a prominent position above the road from Clovenfords to Heriot, to the south of Fountainhall. Its 19th century central projecting entrance bay addition with round-arched stair window to principal elevation is one of its most distinguishing features. It is one of the very few remaining earlier buildings in the Fountainhall area. Although a farm has been on this site for centuries, the current farmhouse appears to date from the late 18th century and may have begun as a single-storey building. The steep pitch of the roof, raised skews and thackstanes indicate that the roof was originally thatched.

Originally part of the large Borthwick Estate, it was sold in the 1930s by the Dowager Lady Borthwick and used as a farm until 1938. An aerial photograph of 1965 shows a U-plan steading still extant to the SW but this was demolished in the 1990s and replaced by new housing. The S boundary wall to the W of the house, now sheltering a vegetable garden, is all that remains of the former cart shed, removed before 1965.

List description updated at resurvey (2009)

References

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