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Summary

Description

Alexander Thomson, circa 1855. Asymmetrical, 2-storey, 3-bay Greek-detailed L-plan villa with 3-storey, squat Italianate tower at centre; single storey, flat-roofed entrance set in re-entrant angle to right; single storey service block at rear. Squared and snecked rubble sandstone; yellow sandstone ashlar dressings. Rubble plinth to front; shallow-pitched roofs; overhanging timber eaves (exposed rafter ends at tower); decorative bargeboards; consoled cast-iron brackets. Tooled sandstone quoins; tooled long and short surrounds to droved openings; flush cills; pilaster mullions at ground comprising moulded bases, anthemion detail beneath moulded capitals; plain capitals at 1st floor. Harl-pointed random rubble single storey, U-plan former service block adjoined at rear.

NE (ENTRANCE) ELEVATION: steps to single storey entrance porch off-set to right of centre; anthemion-detailed frieze; curvilinear engraving set in droved surround 3-leaf timber panelled door; plate-glass fanlight. Central tower comprising single window at 1st floor; tripartite window aligned above. Projecting 3-light glazing row (drawing room) at ground in bay to outer left; decorative circular frieze; mannered parapet; anthemion corner detailing; cast-iron balustrade to 1st floor balcony; 5-light glazing row centred in finialed apex above. Single storey service block wings recessed to outer left and right.

SW (REAR) ELEVATION: single window at 1st floor off-set to left of centre main block. Projecting single storey former service wings to front comprising tripartite window centred beneath apex in gabled bay to outer left; boarded timber entrance in linking central wall (open courtyard behind); bipartite window centred beneath apex in gabled bay to outer right.

Predominantly replacement aluminium glazing. Graded grey slate piends and pitches; part corrugated-iron roof to rear service wing; replacement rainwater goods; wallhead stack to SE; circular flues; coped wallhead and apex stacks to SW; decorative cans.

INTERIOR: part-glazed vestibule door. Predominantly original timber panelled doors (similar stylised detailing as vestibule entry); decorative timber surrounds; timber skirting boards. Plaster ceiling-work (sun ray ceiling rose for ground floor day-room/lounge, moon and stars for 1st floor evening-room/drawing room - similar at Holmwood); embossed floral motifs; stylised egg-and-dart cornices; anthemion detailing. Curvilinear cast-iron uprights to stair; timber handrail; stair window set in slightly bowed wall (flat from exterior). Drawing room fireplace from demolished Alexander Thomson Glasgow office block.

BOUNDARY WALL, GATEPIERS AND GATES: coped harl-pointed random rubble wall to Ardencraig Road; square-plan piers flanking entrance; tooled quoins; stylised key-pattern frieze; pyramidal caps; cast-iron geometric-patterned gates.

Statement of Special Interest

An outstanding 'Greek' Thomson house with many original features. Note the stylised timber doors and decorative plaster work - both very similar to his work at Holmwood and Langside. Built for a John Wilson, bookseller and stationer in Rothesay, who feued the site from the Town Council in 1856. Originally known as Tor Castle, then between 1892 and 1932 as Clifton, after which date it was called Tor House. Relatively intact despite replacement glazing. A good example of Thomson?s work, with obvious affinity with his later double villa at Langside, Glasgow (1856-7) and his larger single design for Holmwood (1857). Here too, the buildings are characterised by pilaster-mullioned windows, shallow-pitched eaves, decorative frieze-detailing, timber bargeboards, tripartite finials and circular flues. Combining the Greek with the Egyptian and Italianate, Thomson?s eclecticism is paramount throughout. Designing everything from the cast-iron eave-brackets and anthemion friezes to the Greek interior and key-patterned gatepiers, he considered "...architecture to be total design, inside and out" (p108 McKinstry). Here providing a ?socially insecure? merchant with ready-made culture, Thomson left no space for his client to have a creative role in his own habitation. His primary concern was for a totality of form, a whole made up of precise geometries, a compact plan and heavy massing incapable of further extension.

Rothesay is one of Scotland's premier seaside resorts, developed primarily during the second half of the 19th and early 20th centuries, and incorporates an earlier medieval settlement. The town retains a wide range of buildings characteristic of its development as a high status 19th century holiday resort, including a range of fine villas, a Victorian pier and promenade.

The history and development of Rothesay is defined by two major phases. The development of the medieval town, centred on Rothesay Castle, and the later 19th and early 20th century development of the town as a seaside resort. Buildings from this later development, reflect the wealth of the town during its heyday as a tourist destination, and include a range of domestic and commercial architecture of a scale sometimes found in larger burghs. Both the 19th and early 20th century growth of the town, with a particular flourish during the inter-war period, included areas of reclaimed foreshore, particularly along the coast to the east of the town and around the pier and pleasure gardens.

(List description revised as part of Rothesay listing review 2010-11).

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