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Summary

Description

Earlier 19th century with alterations and addition by George Donaldson McNiven, 1914, and later 20th century addition. 2-storey, 3-bay, rectangular-plan, piended-roof former villa with later Arts and Crafts style bowed windows and pitched-roof hall extension to S gable. Rendered with raised painted stone quoins and window margins. First floor cill band course. 5-light bow timber windows with domed roofs. Large timber-mullioned tripartite box window to hall gable with bracketed overhanging canopy. Circa 1975 flat-roofed extension incorporating earlier windows to front of hall. Villa attached to bridge parapet at N gable.

Predominantly 12-pane glazing in timber sash and case windows with triple 9-pane casements to hall. Piended slate roof; cast-iron rooflights; zinc ridges. Plain rendered eaves stacks. Cast-iron rainwater goods.

INTERIOR: angled cornices with fruit details. Main hall with 3 curved roof trusses on corbel-stops under partially lowered ceiling.

Statement of Special Interest

The Vale of Leithen Social club is an early 19th century villa with good Arts and Crafts alterations. The club is prominently sited on the main crossroads of the town at the High Street and Leithen Crescent.

The 19th century villa, formally known as Bridgend House has an interesting and varied history. The first edition Ordnance Survey map (1855) shows the house was used as the Union Bank. An article from the Standard in 1914 notes that the building was owned by a Mrs Pate before the 1870s, by which point it was shared between George Anderson, grocer, and the Conservative Association. In 1914 the villa was purchased by Sir Henry Ballantyne, local benefactor and owner of Caerlee Mill, and subsequently converted to the Liberal Club for the use of the local people.

The architect George Donaldson McNiven (1878-1949) had a small practice in Edinburgh and had previously worked in the eminent practices of John More Dick Peddie & Washington and Robert Rowand Anderson. His work was in the arts and crafts style and he was proposed to the RIAS by Robert Lorimer.

The domed windows are typical of McNiven; identical paired windows can be seen on a villa by him, 6 Spylaw Park, Edinburgh, built in the same year.

The refurbishment works of 1914 to form the club involved the addition of the copper-domed bay windows, the gabled hall extension to the South gable which held a billiard room, and the stone carved lintel bearing the inscription 'Salus Populi Suprema Est Lex'. This is a quote from Cicero and translates 'The good of the people is the highest law'. On completion there was a reading room and games room to the ground floor with upstairs being a committee room and caretakers quarters. The building remains (2006) in popular use under the guise of the Vale of Leithen Social Club who have been resident since 1969. The upper floor is now a separate flat.

Tripartite piended roof dormer to rear evident in 1914 photograph now gone and some small changes to window layout at rear.

References

Bibliography

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