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Summary

Description

Robert Alexander Bryden, 1897. 2-storey, asymmetrical-plan Free Renaissance style villa with baronial detailing including distinctive octagonal turret and viewing platform. Squared and snecked sandstone with ashlar dressings; splayed base course; broken string course; roll-moulded openings; corbelled out 1st floor; crowstepped gables; Jacobean strapwork carving; wide rounded gable apex chimneystacks. E (entrance) elevation: 3-bay, 2-storey main house to left; single storey service wing to right. Advanced crowstepped gabled bay with bipartite windows and round arched carved panel to gable apex to right. Central lean-to porch in re-entrant angle with exaggerated crowsteps and large ball-finial. Bipartite ground floor window and segmental-arched stone pedimented breaking eaves dormer to right. Recessed crowstepped service door and fully-glazed (inserted 2006) service wing to far right. S elevation: 2 storeys and platformed octagonal tower to left with carved detailing, dentilled eaves course, chimneystack to parapet wall. Advanced crowstepped gable to right with recessed carved plaque and prominent round arched carved moulding; wide chamfered and corniced rounded chimneystack to gable apex.

Predominantly 6-pane non-traditional timber windows. Pitched roofs; grey Scottish slate; Gable end and wallhead chimneystacks;circular clay cans; terracotta ridge tiles; cast-iron rainwater goods.

Statement of Special Interest

Glenfarg is a good example of the more elaborate villas built towards the end of the village's development in the late 1890s. It is situated at the E edge of the village above Gottar Water just before it joins the River Gryfe. Baronial, Tudor and Jacobean detailing is freely applied, with the octagonal tower and viewing platform contritbuting to this compact yet dramatic composition. This purpose built settlement was founded by philanthropist William Quarrier in 1877 to accommodate orphaned and destitute children. He had operated orphanages in Glasgow since the early 1870s and was opposed to the institutional nature of the city poorhouses. 50 or so 'cottage homes' were built between 1877 and 1910 on the 10 acre site of Nittingshill Farm, bought at auction for £3560. Each employed a housemother who would look after groups of children in more familial and healthier environment than that of Glasgow's East End. The village also had its own school, church, post office, dairy, poultry farm, fire station, and workshops where the children were trained to a trade. Robert Alexander Bryden was responsible for designing all the buildings on the site in association with Andrew Robertson, with each villa built to an individual specification. The Free Revivalist style, making use of Baronial, Gothic and Tudor influences, is thought to have been inspired by the work of W E Nesfield and Richard Norman Shaw who pioneered the Garden Village movement in England.

The village as a whole is significant historically in terms of education and development of children in care, and remains generally well preserved with only a few of the buildings having been altered or extended. The historic core of the village has held Conservation Area status since 1985.

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