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Summary

Description

George D McNiven, 1914. Large, 2-storey, 5-bay, irregular-plan villa with piended roof, deep eaves, advanced entrance bay with Dutch gable and advanced end-bays to N; advanced end-bays with half-domed canted windows at ground and swept-roofed verandah between to S elevation; service wing to E. Harled with brown sandstone dressings. Base course; outer bays slightly corbelled out at 1st floor. Plain sandstone cills to all windows.

N (ENTRANCE) ELEVATION: advanced Dutch-gabled bay to centre; 2-leaf oak panelled door in stop-chamfered, roll-moulded, Tudor-arched architrave with carved decoration to spandrels; Tudor-arched window above with stop-chamfered sandstone margins. Irregular fenestration to recessed flanking bays and advanced, piend-roofed end-bays.

W (SIDE) ELEVATION: 3 bays. Canted window at ground to left; smaller canted window on brackets above. Shouldered wallhead stack breaking eaves to right of windows. Regular fenestration in other 2 bays.

S (GARDEN) ELEVATION: 3 principal bays and recessed blind service wing to outer right. Central verandah with swept roof supported on 2 tapered columns and brick corbels; French door with sidelights to rear of verandah; bipartite, piend-roofed dormer above. Piend-roofed bays flanking to right and left; canted windows at ground with copper half-domes; tripartite windows at 1st floor.

E (SIDE) ELEVATION: service wing, now forming 6b. Flat-roofed outshot at ground with later extension; timber panelled front door with later pilastered surround to N return. Irregular fenestration; gabled dormer, breaking eaves at 1st floor.

Timber sash and case windows, predominantly with plate glass in lower sashes and small-pane glazing in upper sashes. Plain rendered stacks with red clay cans. Red tile roof with red ridge tiles.

INTERIOR: half-glazed timber panelled door to inner lobby with hand-modelled floral plaster motifs to ceiling and above picture rail. Timber panelled inner hall; beamed ceiling; painted stone chimneypiece with roll-moulded, stop-chamfered, Tudor-arched opening; staircase though roll-moulded Tudor arch with barley-twist timber balusters. Some balusters with carved floral motifs. Drawing room with 17th century style plasterwork; roll-moulded fireplace with flanking bookshelves and advanced canted chimney breast in elliptical-arched ingleneuk; decorative plasterwork to edge of arch and canted sides of chimney breast.

BOUNDARY WALL, GATES AND GATEPIERS: triangular-coped random rubble boundary wall. Cylindrical rubble gatepiers with cornice and rounded tops. 2-leaf timber gates with wrought-iron decoration to upper section.

GARAGE: 1920s motor-house, roughcast with piended red tile roof; later garage door.

Statement of Special Interest

A good Arts and Crafts villa with a particularly fine and well-detailed interior. The influence of Lorimer (who built a number of the neighbouring houses) is strongly evident, both in elevational and interior detailing, and in the planning of the house. Like most of the larger houses built in Colinton at about this time, the main elevation of the house is to the South, and contains the principal rooms and bedrooms, which overlook the garden. The entrance, service rooms and bathrooms, which do not require much sunlight are place on the North side of the house. The only exception to this is the Kitchen, and servants? bedroom above, which are at the SE corner. However, they are recessed back from the main garden elevation of the house, and their windows face East, so the garden retains its privacy. This arrangement has the added advantage that the kitchen is not made too hot by the midday sun.

George MacNiven was a former pupil of Sir George Washington Browne, and started independent practice in 1903. Browne (who was the architect of Edinburgh central library) was a former chief assistant to Sir Robert Rowand Anderson, who was responsible for the building of a number of houses in Colinton.

References

Bibliography

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