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Summary

Description

James Grieve, 1932. Single storey, Gothic memorial gable on rear extension of earlier building, housing bronze memorial to George Miekle Kemp within 3-light arched window. Coursed whinstone with polished ashlar base course, buttressed angles and plain copes (formerly saddle-backed crow-steps); concrete arched gothic light.

N (PRINCIPAL) ELEVATION: gable-end with remnants of angle buttresses and plain skews replacing earlier saddle-backed crow-steps. Central 3-light pointed-arch blind window of intersecting bar tracery within arched ashlar surround with heavy stone mullions and transoms; inset in central light a bronze memorial tablet with miniature Scott Monument to upper left and bust of Miekle Kemp, inscription under bust reading "GEORGE MIEKLE KEMP, CARPENTER AND ARCHITECT, born 1795 - died 1844". To left light, panel inscribed "THIS MEMORIAL TO GEORGE MIEKLE KEMP WAS SUBSCRIBED BY THE INHABITANTS OF THE COUNTY OF PEEBLES AND OTHERS ON THE FIRST CENTENARY OF THE DEATH OF SIR WALTER SCOTT BARONET OF ABBOTSFORD 21st SEPTEMBER 1932". To right light, panel inscribed "SIR MICHAEL G THORBURN LORD LIEUTENANT, GEORGE ANDERSON PROVOST OF PEEBLES, ROBERT MATHIESON PROVOST OF INNERLEITHEN, JAMES GRIEVE FSA SCOT, COMMITTEE". To lower lights, inset quatrefoil each with coloured shield: Peebles coat of arms in left, saltire to centre and fishing emblem to right; GEORGE MEIKLE KEMP carved into drip sill. Inset carved thistle stone to gablehead with moulded surround; original carved stone finial now missing terminating instead in plain gable head, plain skews replace former crow-steps.

Statement of Special Interest

Sited on the west side of the A703, this memorial is dedicated to George Meikle Kemp (1795 - 1844), the designer of the Scott Monument in Princes Street, Edinburgh. It is incorporated into a gable standing at Moy Hall, the L-plan former workshop of Andrew Noble, joiner and millwright. The memorial was erected in Redscarhead because Kemp was, as a 14-year-old shepherd's son from Moorfoot, apprenticed to Noble. Upon finishing his apprenticeship, Kemp (whilst he was on his way to Galashiels to start a new job) had been befriended by Walter Scott, who had offered him a lift in his carriage. Kemp joined an Edinburgh office of architects in 1826, after working in France and England. The original design for the Scott Monument had come from Rickman & Hutchinson, an English firm, but Meikle Kemp's design was built, as he was a "native" like Scott. Kemp drowned in the Union Canal before the completion of the Scott monument. This memorial was erected in 1932 on the centenary of Scott's death. The design of the bronze tablet is based on the bust of Kemp, by Alexander Handyside Ritchie, found in the Scott Monument Museum. To the left is a miniature of the actual monument. This new gable, based upon the lines of the Scott Monument, was added to the building. Originally it has crowsteps similar to those at Abbotsford, but these are now lost along with the tall gablehead finial.

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