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Summary

Description

Ramsay Traquair, 1910. 2-storey and attic 7-bay asymmetrical Scots Renaissance/Arts and Crafts house with finialled boat dormers breaking eaves. Random rubble with ashlar dressings.

N (KINNEAR ROAD) ELEVATION: corniced ashlar porch in 3rd bay from left with boarded timber door to left and small window to right in roll-moulded surrounds; Venetian window lighting stair above. 2-storey lean-to projection with crow-stepped skews to outer right. Corniced flat-roofed porch to right with bipartite window to N and timber boarded door to E return; shaped, finialled gable above with scrolled skewputt and mullioned and transomed window lighting stair.

S (GARDEN) ELEVATION: symmetrical elevation: advanced shaped-gabled outer bays with 3-storey canted windows; 4 inner bays regularly fenestrated.

E (SIDE) ELEVATION: single gabled bay to right with adjoining single storey piend-roofed extension; timber-boarded door with boat-shaped pediment.

INTERIOR: impressed decoration to hall and stair plaster (EA monogram, thistles and Homeric profile). Original timber banisters and carved newel-posts to stairs. Several original timber chimneypieces. Original timber-panelled doors and window furniture.

BOUNDARY WALL, GATEPOSTS AND UPSTANDS: ashlar-coped rubble boundary wall. Art Nouveau wrought iron gateposts and upstands.

Small-pane glazing in timber sash and case windows; some small casements. Greenish graded slates. Corniced stacks with cylindrical cans.

Statement of Special Interest

Ramsay Traquair was a former pupil of the Edinburgh Academy. The design of Mackenzie House shows the influence of Robert Lorimer, in whose office Traquair had worked. Mackenzie House is named after Robert Mackenzie, headmaster of the Academy 1888-1901, at whose instigation the school had in 1896 acquired the area on the N edge of which the boarding houses were built, as a playing field (still known as 'New Field'). The move to build the boarding houses also came from Mackenzie, who formed The Edinburgh Academy Boarding House Company Ltd to raise the capital for their building. Previously boys had boarded in the masters' own houses. Scott House and Jeffrey House (separately listed) were built in 1899. Each house was designed to have a house-master's wing, boys' accommodation ranging from dormitories sleeping seven to single bedrooms, a dining room, library, music room, sick-room and matron's room. Mackenzie House was built for the use of junior boarders. In addition to having been designed by a well-known Edinburgh architect (who later became head of the School of Architecture at MacGill University in Montreal), the 3 boarding houses are interesting as examples of purpose-built private-school boarding houses, incorporating current ideas on health and hygiene. The average cubic air space assigned to each boy in the bedrooms was 'above 800 feet which is the amount recommended by Dr Dukes of Rugby in his well-known book upon school hygiene.' 'Considerations of health and eye-sight determined the adoption of the electric light.'

References

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