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Summary

Description

1874 for William Chambers. 1'-storey, 3-bay, L-plan picturesque cottage with gabled porch. Harled and painted random rubble, sandstone window dressings with smooth margins and chamfered arrises; door similarly treated with haunched shoulders. Exposed rafters and plain barge boards.

E (PRINCIPAL) ELEVATION: to left of centre, pitched entrance porch: steps leading to sandstone margined door surround with haunched shoulders and boarded timber door, blind returns to porch; left of elevation blind; to right, pair of regularly placed rectangular windows. To attic, pair of set-back piended canted dormers with larger windows to front and canted side lights flanking porch roof; stack aligned with centre of porch roof.

S ELEVATION: plain gable end with 3-light bay window to centre, date stone (1874 within moulded surround) inset near gable, overhanging eaves with plain barge boarding and timber braced gable.

W (REAR) ELEVATION: gabled end with fairly regular fenestration and door on left return.

N ELEVATION: plain gable end with small door to centre left, overhanging eaves with plain barge boarding and timber braced gable.

Mostly 8-pane glazing in timber sash and case windows; 3-pane dormers with 2-pane canted sidelights, all in timber sashes and cases. Pitched purple slate roof with lead ridging and flashing. Painted cast-iron rainwater goods. Harled stack with smooth sandstone angle margins and moulded neck cope, pair of mismatched cans.

INTERIOR: not seen, 2002 but in residential use.

Statement of Special Interest

Not to be confused with the original Glenormiston, a mansion that was the principal building on the estate until it was demolished in 1956. The smaller farmhouse, further up the hill at the rear of the site, has been adapted to form the principal dwelling, and taken over the name. The whole estate was formerly known as 'Wormiston' and 'Ormiston'; it belonged to the seventh Earl of Traquair, whose trustees sold it for £8400 to John Scott, writer to the Signet. Scott improved the land dramatically, extending cultivation and planting larch belts. His heirs sold it in 1805 to William Hunter (farmer, Liberton Grange near Edinburgh) for £9910 who renamed the estate "Glenormiston". He continued to fashion fields, raise plantations and build the farm steading and the now demolished mansion. After Hunter's death, the estate was sold for £24,000 to William Stewart who again continued improving the estate, spending £10,000 on works. More land was drained, pavilion wings added to the mansion house and gardens laid out. William Chambers bought the estate in 1849 for £25,500 and created a new entrance to the property with its own lodge. It is sited around 4 1/2 miles from Peebles. He improved the land further and altered the farm steading, then known as 'Glenormiston Grange'. He subscribed to new methods in husbandry and had the steading harled and whitewashed. It was regarded as one of the best adapted modern husbandry farms in the county, and to complement it he built a number of labourers cottages. By 1864, the planting on the estate was maturing and it was regarded as "valuable", a sharp comparison to when the area had started as an open hillside labelled the "ten pound land of Ormiston". These cottages (now separate from the estate) are sited on the informal entrance to Glenormiston and lie 5 miles from Peebles on the main road. This informal drive leads past the coach house and on to the farm steading. There were also some stone quarries in a wooded area known as Merrybrae and a track led here from the drive. The cottages were built as part of William Chambers' improvements to the estate on the site of an older cottage. The Velvet Hall Strip cottages were used to house workers on the estate, such as the gamekeeper and those involved with the running of the estate not the farm (whose accommodation can be seen to the NW of the farm steading). This house lies adjacent to the main road and is more decorative than the attached pairs to the north. It has a bay window (facing the main road) and a carved date stone, which the others do not. Listed as a good example of a later 19th century vernacular cottage with original features intact (glazing, overhanging eaves, exposed rafters and plain barge boarding).

References

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