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Summary

Description

Peddie and Kinnear, 1861. 2-storey with basement and attic, Scots Baronial house on ground falling to S. Square and corner towers and turrets, corbel table with open corbelled turrets, crenellated archway with coat-of-arms. Squared and snecked sandstone, polished ashlar quoins and dressings; base course, band course and eaves cornice; architraved doors and windows, segmental headed openings, gunloops, stone transoms and mullions, stop-chamfered arrises.

N (ENTRANCE) ELEVATION: tripartite doorway, 2-leaf panelled door with 3-pane fanlight in crowstepped gable at centre, rounded corner to right with corbel at 1st floor, window in bay to left of centre below corbel course; 1st floor with window in gablehead and further window with dormerhead breaking eaves to left. Recess to right of centre, stone steps to basement with door flanked by windows, full-height modern stack in re-entrant with adjacent window to right at ground floor, narrow window beyond and further window to outer right; 1st floor with carved tablet to left, window in bay to outer right, finialled dormer window above and large rooflight.

E ELEVATION: 3-bay, adjoining corner tower (see below) at outer left. Bipartite window at centre ground, slightly advanced finialled lop-sided gable with rounded corners at ground to right with window (converted from door) set into architraved doorcase below blind tablet and stepped corbel to slightly jettied 1st floor with window at centre below finialled segmental pediment with sunburst moulding in gablehead with thistle finial; modern fire escape door to left of centre (converted window?) in crowstepped gable. Fire escape across left bay to bipartite window at centre (left side converted to part-glazed door) with gabled dormerhead breaking eaves at 1st floor, small blind tablet in gablehead to left of centre above fanlit door.

SE CORNER TOWER: 3-storey. Blind at ground with 5-stage round corbel supporting round quadripartite window at 1st floor, corbelled to square above; with window at centre and steeply pitched gable with small moulded tablet in gablehead.

S ELEVATION: crowstepped chimneyheaded gable to 3-storey with attic tower at centre. Lower 3-storey wing to right and gabled corner tower (see above) to outer right. 5-storey turret in re-entrant to left adjoining single storey stepped-back link section with slightly advanced 2-storey with attic wing beyond adjoining roofless turret at outer left.

Blind moulded panel, balustraded stone balcony on moulded consoles and rounded corners corbelled to square below bartizans to centre tower. Canted window on deep corbel below 2 dormerheaded windows to outer right wing. Gunloop windows, corbelled top floor and finialled bellcast roof to turret. Lop-sided crowstepped gable and finialled dormer windows, trefoil mouldings and gunloop windows to left wing.

2-, 6- and 10-pane glazing pattern and plate glass glazing in timber sash and case windows. Graded grey and fish-scale pattern slates. Coped and shouldered ashlar stacks, ashlar coped skews and skewputts, decorative stone and cast-iron finials.

INTERIOR: contemporary decoration retained including marble chimneypieces and fine plaster cornices. Niches in original entrance hall, inner hallway with marble chimneypiece surmounted by panel with coat-of-arms, panelled ceiling with decorative cornicing, scale-and-platt staircase (boarded) with timber newel posts, handrail and finials, 6-pane lantern over stairwell. Drawing room with elaborate plasterwork cornicing extending into rounded window and centre rose; decorative cornicing to dining room; marble chimneypieces and some working shutters. Decorative cast-iron balusters and timber handrail to top of turret stair.

OUTBUILDINGS: single storey slated rubble outhouse (converted stable), blocked cart arch with flanking doors (blocked to left) in irregular pair of crowstepped gables at centre below blind tablet in large gablehead to left and window in gablehead to right; blind bay to outer right (projecting extension demolished prior to survey); door and window to left of centre. Crenellated wall of coped stugged ashlar with bull-faced dressings to segmental-headed arch with mask keystone and cast-iron(?) coat-of-arms on raised centre stone; small hollow tower with cross-gunloop and quatrefoil opening to N end of wall.

TERRACE WALL, BOUNDARY WALLS AND GATEPIERS AND RAILINGS: low semicircular-coped terrace wall punctuated with urn stands. Rubble boundary walls to orchard, coped rubble boundary walls with inset cast-iron railings to road. Stop-chamfered coped ashlar gatepiers with ball(?) finials.

Statement of Special Interest

In 1861 the ground at Starley Hall was feued by the Earl of Morton to James Taylor, merchant of Leith for the erection of a dwelling house. The building was completed by 1867. Livingstone was informed by the daughter of Dr Landale who built the Binn House by Peddie and Kinnear that Starley Hall was a replica. The Drinking Fountain at Links Place was presented to the town by James Taylor. By 1893 the proprietor was Rev Oscar Laurie, Roffey, Horsham, Sussex who left the property to his daughters. Sold to Fife County Council in 1954, the Hall was converted to a home for the elderly, closing in 1980 and re-opening in 1981 as an independent residential school which it is now (1994). Groome links Starley Hall with Colinswell and Greenmount as "handsome modern mansions".

References

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