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Summary

Description

Sir Robert Lorimer, 1896-7. 2-storey, 3-bay, roughly square-plan with service outshot to E. Arts and Crafts house with traditional English and Scottish features; round entrance turret, carved window cills, finialled gables, and jerkin-headed roof to rear. Harled sandstone with red sandstone cills and other dressings. 1st floor slightly corbelled out to SW elevation and turret. Eaves course to turret only.

SW (PRINCIPAL) ELEVATION: entrance turret recessed to outer right; timber panelled front door in roll-moulded sandstone architrave with lintel carved GOD'S BLESSING IS MY HERITAGE and 3 rose motifs below. Main elevation symmetrical; central bipartite window at ground; flanking quadripartite windows; 3 tripartite windows at first floor. Cills of 1st floor windows inscribed as follows from left to right: BLISSIT BE ZE LORD FOR ALL HIS GIFTIS; CONSTANTI PECTORI MORTAIIUM VMBRAE; LAVS ET HONOR DEO.

NW (SIDE) ELEVATION: irregularly fenestrated. Gable to right with large staircase window and small window with central stained glass panel at ground to right. Single-storey section with single window to left.

NE (REAR) ELEVATION: 2-storey section with half-piended roof. Service wing outshot to left with flat-coped walls and ball-finial at corner. Fenestration in 3 bays with windows of different sizes.

SE (SIDE) ELEVATION: advanced round turret to left with windows at both floors and front door (see above) to left return; advanced stack and blind gable to outer left. Single-storey 2-window section to right. Recessed service wing to outer right with glazed timber side door.

Predominantly timber casements with leaded lights. Corniced rendered stacks with red and yellow clay cans. Red tile roof with red ridge tiles. Cast-iron rainwater goods; decorative hopper to SE.

INTERIOR: tiled entrance lobby with half-glazed timber panelled inner door. Advanced chimney breast in dining room with flanking cupboards (cupboard to left with 2-leaf timber panelled door; cupboard to right with glazed door); fireplace with roll-moulded sandstone surround and decorative cast-iron grate with raised rose motifs. Large 2-leaf door between dining room and drawing room. Drawing room fireplace with roll-moulded sandstone surround and timber mantelpiece with double shelf. Small sitting room off drawing room with small stained glass panel in window and some decorative plasterwork to ceiling. Working shutters and original ventilation units in dining room and drawing room. Plain plaster cornices to principal rooms. Timber panelled interior doors with original door furniture. Stained glass panel in bathroom window.

BOUNDARY WALL AND GATEPIERS: flat-coped random rubble boundary wall; gatepiers with ball caps.

Statement of Special Interest

B-Group with numbers 21, 23 and 42 Pentland Avenue, 3 Spylaw Avenue and 21 Gillespie Road (21 Gillespie Road is in Baberton Ward). Built as an investment by Lorimer's aunt, Miss Guthrie Wright, who lived opposite at 23 Pentland Avenue. Numbers 42 and 21 Pentland Avenue were also built for her. This house and its neighbours, Binley, 42 Pentland Avenue and Acharra, 3 Spylaw Avenue, were built at the same time on a group contract by the builder Nathaniel Grieves. The first owner was G W Balfour, who was Physician Ordinary to the King in Scotland.

Westfield is one of the smallest and simplest of Lorimer's houses in Colinton, but is nevertheless very characteristic of his "Colinton Style", and has many features in common with the other houses he built in the area, both in terms of planning and interior decoration. Lorimer felt that houses should ideally be approached from the North, and if this was not possible (as here, and Binley Cottage next door), he placed the approach close to the boundary wall. The house is set diagonally across the rear corner of the plot thereby creating the largest possible area of garden, which is overlooked by the principal rooms of the house. The rooms used by the servants all overlook the rear courtyard. Since Westfield was originally intended as a weekend retreat, the interior is fairly plain. However, the door furniture is very typical of Lorimer, and the arrangement in the dining room of fireplace flanked by cupboards is almost identical to that in Colinton Cottage, (21 Pentland Avenue), and very similar to other houses by Lorimer in the area. Although the house has been slightly modernised inside, it is one of a very few in Colinton which have not had later extensions added.

References

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