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Summary

Description

Late 19th / early 20th century. Brick water tank with arched turf covered roof.

W (PRINCIPAL) ELEVATION: segmental-arch elevation with paired brick voussoirs to outer edge; timber boarded entrance door.

OTHER ELEVATIONS: arched mound covered with roofing felt, soil and grass.

INTERIOR: deep brick rectangular tank over 8ft deep linked to in and out pipes.

Statement of Special Interest

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 Steuart 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. He was a publisher and Lord Provost of Edinburgh. 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". Of similar design to an icehouse (and sometimes mistaken for an air raid shelter), this fresh water tank is used to supply the houses on the Glenormiston estate. The water is collected off the hills above and congregates in a large pond to the north of the farm steading. The water is kept in this covered tank before being dispersed via pipes to cottages further down the hill. The whole system is based on the supply being kept physically higher than the demand (the users in the cottages and formerly the house). Listed as an interesting survivor of an estate water supply system.

References

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