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Summary

Description

18th century. 2-storey, 3-bay, L-plan gabled house (former coaching inn) fronting road with curved stair tower in re-entrant angle to rear. Painted rubble with raised sandstone margins. Regularly spaced windows meeting eaves at 1st floor.

N ELEVATION: pitched roof porch off-centre right with small window to front and doorway to W return. E (Road) ELEVATION: Gable end of N section to right with windows to left; slightly recessed wing extending to left with doorway to centre. To rear: bowed stair outshot at re-entrant angle with round arched window and pointed-arch glazing pattern. Single-storey pitched ancillary buildings with large openings attached to W gable end, stepped at roof level following slope of land.

Some 4-pane glazed timber sash and case windows to rear. Predominantly uPVC windows with 12-pane glazing elsewhere. Grey slate. Coped gable head stacks with clay cans. Cast-iron rainwater goods.

INTERIOR: stair with curvilinear hardwood handrail and cast iron balustrade. Some early flagstone floors remain.

Statement of Special Interest

Prominently located on the old coach road and clearly visable from across the Galawater, Bankhouse formerly operated as a coaching inn and was extended to form an L-plan during the later part of the 18th century. It is notable for its close-set 1st floor window arrangement and rounded stair outshot to rear, both characteristic of its 18th Century date.

Bankhouse operated as the principal coaching inn in the Parish and was the 1st stage stop on the old Edinburgh to Carlisle Road. It was later superceded by Torsonce Inn built slightly further south on the new Galashiels Road which opened in 1819 (see separate listing). A notice in the 'Edinburgh Evening Courant' dated 11th May 1818 offers the lease of the Bankhouse Inn for one or more years noting "there being no Inn yet erected on the new line of road, this may be a desirable situation for some time". Applications were to be made by Mr Tait of Pirn, the proprietor, prominent landowner and occupier of nearby Pirn House.

The building has been occupied as the farmhouse of Bankhouse Farm since the mid 19th century, at which time improvements were made to the Bankhouse steading.

Change of category from B to C(S) at resurvey (2009).

References

Bibliography

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