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Summary

Description

Rowand Anderson, Paul and Partners, with Basil Spence, William Kininmonth and Hamish Burden, 1936-8. 2-storey (single storey dormered single bay to far left), 5-bay, rectangular plan, Arts and Crafts interwar house set on high ground with wooded backdrop facing out to open highland countryside. White painted cement render; rusticated granite detailing; deep basecourse of granite random rubble. Prominent gable off-centre left with round arched recessed doorway immediately to right; flat-roofed circular 2-storey bay at far right corner; corbelled out bay to far left. Catslide dormers flanking gabled bay. Gabled rear elevation with irregular fenestration; boarded timber rear entrance door at rear return to left.

Large square and rectangular multipaned metal casement windows; oak plank door; pitched roofs with swept profile; Ballachulish slates; coped rendered chimneystacks, clay cans. Cast-iron rainwater goods.

INTERIOR (seen 2013): interwar design scheme largely intact, with bespoke timber fixtures and fittings including rear main stair canted doorways and architraves, plank panelled doors with highly figured timber and bespoke brass handles. Small plain classical timber chimneypieces to drawing and dining rooms. Kitchen and service entrance to left rear of plan, altered in circa 1970s.

Statement of Special Interest

Garth of Finlarig is an important little altered interwar house, and is one of a small group of outstanding modern domestic designs characteristic of work of Kininmonth and Spence during the 1930s that adapted the Arts and Crafts and Scottish vernacular architectural detailing to create unique modern compositions, from small cottages to large country house commissions.

The white rendered exterior and large multi-paned windows inject a modernist language to a mixture of finely detailed traditionalist features such as catslide dormers, corbelled out section of the principal elevation and rusticated stone detailing. The interior, although altered to the kitchen/dining area and to the rear of the plan to accommodate an additional stair to the upper floor, remains largely intact with bespoke period fixtures and fittings which demonstrate a crafts based aesthetic and are characteristic of the architects' fittings in other domestic commissions.

Basil Spence and William Kininmonth began working together in 1931 producing a number of striking houses for private clients in Edinburgh during the first half of the 1930s, including Lismhor and Easter Belmont (see separate listings). They both joined Arthur Balfour Paul in 1934 to form Rowand Anderson, Paul and Partners - they were also known to work separately as well. Balfour Paul had been a successful country house architect and previously secured the commission for the neighbouring Wester Finlarig House in 1927 which is possibly how the smaller house for 'Mr Agnew' was commissioned from Kininmonth and Spence. Campbell, et. al note that Hamish Burden also contributed to the 'Agnew House' as it was first known.

On 1 February 1939 a statement of total cost was submitted to the client and the fees paid soon afterwards. On 11 December 1945 Kininmonth and Burden inspected the house regarding a proposed upstairs extension. Spence had left the Rowand Anderson, Paul and Partners by 1946 (See RCAHMS).

List description updated (2013).

References

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