Millbank Cottage, Sauchen

Built by Robert Reid Shepherd, around 1902. Small, rectangular-plan, symmetrical single-storey and attic timber-boarded cottage with bargeboarded overhanging eaves. Granite base-course. Regular window arrangement.

East (principal) elevation: three-bay elevation. To ground floor, timber and glazed door in architraved opening to centre bay, architraved bipartite windows to left and right bays. To attic floor, to left and right bays, pitched-roof tripartite dormers with moulded timber mullions and transom, timber apex finials (missing to left bay) and barge-boarded overhanging eaves with kingposts. Small cast-iron roof-light to centre bay.

West (rear) elevation: single architraved window to centre.

North (side) elevation: brick chimney-back to centre, architraved window to right.

South (side) elevation: brick (with some granite rubble to base) chimney-back to centre, architraved window to right.

The window openings to the ground floor are plate glass in timber sash and case frames, those to the dormers have plate glass glazing in timber casement frames. Pitched corrugated iron roof, moulded bargeboards. To south and north, corniced brick gable-head apex stacks with octagonal cans (one now truncated).

Interior: entrance hall with timber-boarded walls and ceiling and timber stair with turned newel posts. South room has timber-boarded walls and ceiling and a moulded timber cornice. North room has a moulded timber cornice.

Historical background

Millbank croft was historically part of the Cluny estate and was owned by John Gordon of Cluny. The Ordnance Survey Name Book of 1865-71 describes the earlier stone-built cottage as one-storey in height and thatched (OS1/1/15/15). The timber cottage was built by Robert Reid Shepherd (1875-1951), a carpenter and joiner on the Cluny estate, in around 1902, just prior to his marriage to Mary Anne Littlejohn.

Millbank croft now comprises the timber cottage (facing east) and the earlier stone croft house (facing north), plus a corrugated metal agricultural shed at the southern extent of the croft which was built around 2021. An L-plan range of workshop and byre buildings in the centre of the croft (dating from the late-19th century) were demolished sometime after 2021.