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Summary

Description

Circa 1870 with west wing addition circa 1893-1912. 2-storey and attic, 4-bay, rectangular-plan, small country house in a Tudor-Italianate style with castellated detailing and including square-plan tower, set on high ground and a sloping site. Squared and snecked ashlar. Base course. Moulded margins. Shouldered gables with obelisk finials. Moulded ridge skews. Pitched-roof dormers. Main entrance to south, steps to basket-arch recessed porch with studded timber door and decorative fanlight. Door flanked by engaged columns with finial caps and moulded crest. Bowed window to right with castellated parapet. Projecting tripartite window to ground floor east elevation. Whinstone rubble with dressed quoins to circa 1890 wing addition to west. Quadripartite window to first floor west elevation with oculus above.

Multi-horizontal pane glazing to timber sash and case windows. Slate roof. Cast iron rainwater goods. Moulded coped stacks with octagonal clay cans.

INTERIOR: not seen (2013).

WALLED GARDEN at NO 43779 27708: early 19th century, large oval walled garden to the northwest of the house. Whinstone rubble with squared dressed coping stones.

Statement of Special Interest

Chesterhill is well detailed country residence using good quality stone work and is likely to date to around 1870. It has a number of distinctive architectural features including castellated parapets, square-plan Italianate tower, shouldered skews and a horizontal (or lying-pane) glazing pattern. The house sits within a slight hollow on a secluded sloping site surrounded by woodland with a finely constructed oval walled garden located to the northwest. Oval-shaped walled gardens of the late 18th or early 19th century that survive largely intact are relatively rare in Scotland.

The name of the property was changed to 'Chesterhill' from 'Cliff' in 1970 after being purchased by the family of the current owner. The name of Chesterhill is associated with the Berry family of nearby Tayfield House, who owned a neighbouring property, also called Chesterhill, throughout the 19th century.

The house appears to be built on the site of an earlier property called Cliff Terrace, which is shown on the 1854 Ordnance Survey map as an irregular-plan building. The oval walled garden is also depicted on this map.

Newport On Tay was a popular place for Dundee merchants to live, as they could travel to and from their business via a steamer across the Tay. We know from newspaper records that is the case for Chesterfield as Dundee Merchant Thomas Powrie died at Cliff Terrace in 1847 and his widow was resident there until 1854. An 1859 advert to let the property mentions stables, coach house and byre, and these are depicted on the 1854 Ordnance Survey map. These buildings had been demolished by the time of the 1893 Ordnance Survey map.

The Dundee Trade Directories record that Dundee flax merchant Edward Parker was living at Cliff Terrace between 1861 and 1877, by which time the property was being referred to as 'Cliff'. The present house was probably built during this period. A further additional wing was added to the west between 1894 and 1912, as it is shown on the 1912 Ordnance Survey map.

References

Bibliography

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