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Summary

Description

Dated 1850 with later additions. 2-storey 3-bay symmetrical rectangular-plan farmhouse with linked buildings to NW and SE forming an enclosed quadrangular courtyard. Squared and snecked yellow and grey sandstone with ashlar dressings. Base Course. Raised ashlar margins to house. Crow-stepped gables to farm buildings.

FARMHOUSE: principal (SW) elevation has a central timber panelled door with a bracketed sloping stone canopy and 4-pane fanlight. Central gabletted dormer breaking eaves with date plaque inscribed: S 1850. Square-headed dormers breaking eaves to outer bays with projecting timber cornice. Rear elevation has irregular fenestration, central dormer. Lean-to 20th century extension containing entrance. Small toilet block to SE. 2-pane modern timber sash and case windows, modern timber windows to extension. Piended grey slate roof. 2 ridge stacks with clay cans. Cast iron rainwater goods. Interior largely modernised; stone stair.

SW STEADING RANGE: short range adjoining NW gable of house. 2 large windows and grey slate roof. Flagstone floor. Single ridge stack.

NW STEADING RANGE: long byre. Coursed rubble. Single sliding metal door to N gable with stone lintel and small vent over. Blocked slit vent to S gable. Horizontal vents to side elevations. Double metal door and window to S end of W elevation. Numerous rooflights. Slated A-frame roof. Crowstepped gables, with a single beaked skewputt to N. Ball finials (missing to S). Concrete floor and stalls with ceramic troughs and metal wall-mounted bowls.

NE STEADING RANGE: rubble with droved quoins. Milking parlour with hay-loft over. Cartshed to SE. Crowstepped gable with beaked skewputts to NW. Contains 2 boarded doors on ground floor and double boarded door to hayloft. 2 large modern windows to left and two segmental headed open arches (one blocked up) to right in SW elevation.

SE STEADING RANGE: consists of 2 distinct buildings. Piended section to NE with alternating bands of square and fishscale slates to the SE pitch only. A-frame roof. Stone skew table. Single door. Single crow-stepped gable and two blocked up single doors to SW section. Former smithy projecting into courtyard with crowstepped gable and gablehead stack.

BOUNDARY WALLS AND GATEPIERS: rubble with semicircular copes. Square-plan gatepiers.

Statement of Special Interest

Ampherlaw farmhouse and steading is a well-preserved example of a traditional steading attached to an estate, though the inclusion of the farmhouse in the design of the quadrangular group at this date was old fashioned, most moving away from the functional farm, following new theories on planning. The steading includes a symmetrical farmhouse and an intact courtyard with original features such as crow-stepped gables and beaked skewputts.

Ampherlaw steading was built as the home farm of the adjacent Ampherlaw House (separately listed), originally home of the Somerville family (The S on the datestone presumably stands for this). Although the majority of the present buildings are probably of later 19th century date, it is likely that the steading has been located here since the 18th century.

The 1816 Forrest map shows just two parallel buildings on either side of the road. On the 1st edition map there are four main buildings: the farmhouse, a long range to the NW which projected beyond the farmhouse, the SE range with a small annexe to the NW, which may be that which survives, and a NE range, apparently to the NE of that existing today. At this stage the road ran through the farmyard, between the house and the NW range. By the 2nd edition the road has been re-routed and the steading appears to have been built as it is today, as two L-shaped sets of buildings. The NW and SE ranges may contain some earlier fabric but the farm seems to have been substantially rebuilt in the late 19th century. The stonework shows that the NE and SW portions of the SE range were separate buildings and joined together at an early stage. More modern buildings have since been built ' a long low concrete block and asbestos roofed building to the NW (which includes some of a stone boundary wall), metal sheds to the NW and NE and a metal shed attached to the SE of the SE range. The buildings around the courtyard are no longer used for farming but the more modern sheds, including those attached to the SE range, are still in agricultural use (2004).

References

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