Lymphoy House, Currie, Edinburgh

Lymphoy House, Currie, Edinburgh

Lymphoy House is a Grade B listed building designed in the style of William Burn around 1835, with later 19th century additions including a pavilion-roofed block, a 1920 porch, and further extensions. The building is a rambling-plan Cottage Ornée villa, comprising single-storey and two-storey elements with gabled sections. The exterior is rendered in pink painted harl with ashlar dressings and margins, featuring a base course, chamfered reveals, quoin strips, and ball and obelisk finials.

The main eastern elevation presents four asymmetrical bays. A three-bay single-storey block is flanked to the outer right by a two-storey pavilion-roofed bay. The outer right block features a tripartite window at ground level and a bipartite pedimented dormerhead window with a plaque in the gablehead. A broad advanced gabled bay in the penultimate bay to the right contains a broad five-light ashlar canted window beneath a lead roof, with a blank plaque at the gablehead. To the left are two bays with gabled pediments breaking the eaves and blind arrowslits. The penultimate bay to the left was formerly the entrance but is now obscured by a flat-roofed, heavily pointed rubble porch dated 1920, above which a two-pane fanlight remains visible. The outer left bay has a bipartite window.

The southern elevation comprises two gabled blocks. The block to the right is an advanced single-storey bay with a broad five-light ashlar canted window beneath a lead roof and a plaque in the gablehead. To the left is a broad two-storey gable with two windows at first-floor level positioned at the centre and outer right. A modern slate-roofed lean-to conservatory has been added in the re-entrant angle.

The northern elevation displays six asymmetrical bays. The outer left has a gabled dormerhead, blank at ground level, with a wallhead stack positioned above a blank bay to the right. A bipartite window at ground level has a gabled dormerhead offset to the right, followed by closely-spaced bays. A taller two-bay gabled section to the outer right has a slightly truncated left gable with two near-symmetrically disposed windows at first-floor level, a ground-floor window to the left, and a narrow modern door at the outer right.

The western elevation forms a long asymmetrical five-bay range with earlier 20th century additions at the centre. Two symmetrically disposed bays at the outer right feature a string course and a bipartite window at ground level to the left of the penultimate right bay. An advanced block set off-centre to the left contains two windows at ground level with a glazed attic storey above. Two closely spaced bays to the left feature M-gabled dormerheads, with a lean-to advanced block at ground level to the right and a window to the outer left.

The roof is covered with grey slate, with terracotta ridge coping at the single-storey block and lead flashings to the two-storey block. Ashlar coping details appear on the skews and pediments. The chimneys include coped apex and ridge stacks and shouldered wallhead stacks to the two-storey block.

The windows throughout comprise eight-pane sash and case windows on the main elevation, twelve-pane sash and case windows elsewhere, and some plate glass sash and case windows.

The interior features a large early 20th century stair hall with panelling and good quality plasterwork.

The garden contains later 17th and early 18th century Italianate garden furniture including a decorative, heavily carved urn positioned at the centre of a flower-bed immediately in front of the main elevation. A garden seat located to the south of the house consists of a column surmounted by a sculpture of Bacchus putti with a tripartite seat base and griffin dividers. A large curved balustered ashlar seat with console terminals supported on a griffin base stands against a hedge to the east of the house. A 17th century block sundial on the lawn to the east comprises a cubical angle-dial, now cracked with no surviving gnomons, supported on a modern pillar shaft.