Stables And Gardener's House, Ingliston House, Edinburgh

Stables and Gardener's House, Ingliston House, Edinburgh

Designed by John Kinross between 1900 and 1902, this is a U-plan stable complex built in Scottish 17th-century style. The main structure is single-storey with attics to the ranges surrounding a central courtyard. A two-storey gardener's house occupies the south-west angle, its first floor breaking the eaves line. The complex includes a part basement on the falling ground to the north of the west range, and the courtyard is terraced. The building has been converted to residential use.

The walls are constructed from rake-jointed and snecked sandstone with ashlar dressings. Two bays are harled, and there is a later harled addition to the east. The openings have roll-moulded reveals stopped at the sills. An eaves course runs throughout.

SOUTH RANGE

The south elevation presents the gardener's house to the left with a gabled bay interrupted to the right by a squat two-storey stair tower. A generous window opens at ground level, with gothic detailing to a blank panel in the lop-sided gablehead. The tower is polygonal at its base with a small window, corbelling to a circular form above where a window sits within a deep surround bearing a moulded panel above. This is topped by a cornice and conical lead-finiallaed roof. A door sits at the centre close to the re-entrant angle formed with the tower, corniced with scroll-flanked and pedimented over-door panel. To the outer right, a ground-floor window and a first-floor window breaking the eaves sit within a gabled dormerhead. The stable offices to the right clasp the house with a stepped, advanced wall-plane to the left of the pend.

A broad, low semi-circular pend entrance sits to the left of centre with a string course and chamfered reveals. The entrance features a stone-ribbed rubble barrel-vault. Four bays to the centre and right contain generous windows and gabled dormers above. A flanking bay to the right has a blind oculus with a smaller oculus on the gablehead of the return, visible by the recess of two outer bays to the right which contain a door, window, and ventilation panel above. A later addition extends to the outer right.

On the courtyard elevation, the pend sits at the centre with a blind oculus in a lop-sided gablehead. A buttress flanks to the left. A string course extends across the pend and over a blind round-arched recess to the left, flanked by a door with two small square windows close under the eaves above. Two two-storey bays of the house to the right of the pend contain windows at ground level and breaking eaves above.

WEST RANGE

The west elevation is a carriage range. Horizontal windows sit below blank ashlar panels in deeply moulded surrounds in bays to the centre and left, with gabled dormers above. A window to the house at the outer right sits within single-storey bays flanked to the right by an advanced two-storey bay containing a ground-floor window and a first-floor window breaking the eaves. The angle rounds to the left, corbelling to a square at ground-floor level.

The north elevation is a gabled end with basement on the falling ground. A round tower to the left angle contains a window and door on the courtyard return (mirroring the tower to the east range). The basement store has a door and two small windows. Two closely grouped windows in the gablehead sit above a blank shield panel.

On the courtyard elevation, a door to the house sits at the outer left with a small-pane glazed panel over the lintel and a small blocked window flanking. Four square-headed, block-keystoned carriage bays occupy the centre and right with two-leaf doors. The outer bay to the right is gabled. A round tower to the right angle contains a two-leaf door and conical roof with lead capping.

EAST RANGE

The east elevation features an advanced gabled block to the outer left adjoined to the taller gabled return bay of the south range, with a later lower-pitched gabled office bay addition. The advanced original block is altered at ground level, with two gabled dormers above. Two windows to the left contain a stone gabled hayloft door (now glazed) above. A blank wall-plane to the centre and right holds ventilator panels below the eaves.

The north elevation presents a lop-sided gabled return with a window in the gablehead bearing a moulded pediment and a round tower to the right angle detailed as a mirror of the tower on the east range.

The courtyard elevation comprises five bays. Stable doors sit at the outer left, centre, and outer right with block keystones and two-leaf doors with small-pane or two-pane fanlights. Windows occupy the intermediate bays.

GENERAL FEATURES

Multi-pane glazing appears in sash and case windows with smaller lower sashes. Modern windows are fitted to dormers. Six-pane windows serve the stable courtyard. Gablehead and ridge stacks have billet-moulded coping. The roof is covered in graded grey slates. Crowstepped gables feature beak skewputts. Cast-iron ventilator grilles are installed throughout.

The cobbled courtyard and pend are laid with squared rubble. A stone gablet-coped terrace wall with stair to the north encloses the courtyard. Rubble garden walls with ashlar coping enclose the ground to the west and adjoin the gardener's house.