Service Wing, Braehead House, 29 Braehead Drive, Edinburgh

Service Wing, Braehead House, 29 Braehead Drive, Edinburgh

This is a complex of buildings centred on a circa 1700 plain Scots classical house with later service and residential wings. The original two-storey main block with attic was built around 1700 in random rubble yellow sandstone with rubble quoins, long and short surrounds to openings with chamfered reveals, attic windows that break the eaves line, and crowstepped gables. An entrance wing was added to the west gable around 1877, built in squared and snecked rubble sandstone with droved quoins, stop-chamfered polished surrounds to openings, projecting cills, and crowstepped gables. A two-storey L-plan service wing to the north was subdivided and converted to residential use in the late 20th century as Nos 1 and 3 Braepark Road. Single storey garage additions have been inserted at the rear.

The north service wing is built of repointed squared and snecked rubble to parts with random rubble sandstone to the remainder, droved rubble quoins, long and short surrounds to stop-chamfered windows (some architraved), projecting cills, and stugged sandstone crowsteps.

The west (entrance) elevation features a polished sandstone doorpiece in a bay to the outer left comprising a roll-moulded surround, pediment, and fleur-de-lys tympanum detailing with semi-engaged baluster finials. The door is a two-leaf boarded timber piece with a glazed vestibule door within. Corbel blocks support the first floor, with a single window aligned above the entry; a tooled sandstone panel set in an architraved surround sits at first floor in a bay to the outer right.

The south (garden) elevation shows the original block with six bays, a central two-bay gablet flanked by pedimented dormers, and a two-storey single-bay addition to the left. A small-pane glazed timber door sits at ground level in the bay to the left of centre, with single chamfered windows in the remaining ground floor bays. First and attic floors are regularly fenestrated. The later bay to the outer left displays stop-chamfered bipartite windows at both floors, the ground floor aligned with the original first floor level, and a tooled sandstone panel inset in an architraved surround centred in the crowstepped apex.

The north (rear courtyard) elevation displays a crowstepped M-gable. A single storey flat-roofed rubble addition sits to the right. To the left is a two-storey block with a conical-capped tower set in a re-entrant angle. A single window appears at first floor in the central bay, two small single windows to the left of centre, a single window at second floor centred in the apex, and another at second floor in the bay to the left of the later entrance block.

The service wing, west elevation of the east section, shows a central bay with a single doorway at ground level (No 3 Braepark Road) containing a replacement timber door with polished sandstone stop-chamfered surround. Flanking single windows occupy the bays to left and right of the entry, with a single window at first floor to the outer left and another offset to the right of centre. Single windows at both floors appear in an engaged tower in the bay to the outer right, which has a conical-capped roof surmounted by a tapering finial.

The south elevation of the north wing shows a slated pitched porch in the re-entrant angle to the right (No 1 Braepark Road) with boarded timber elevations, a single window facing south, and a single timber panelled door facing west. A relieving arch rises above a single stop-chamfered window at ground in the bay to the outer left, with pedimented dormers in both bays above, overhanging eaves, and boarded timber gableheads.

The north elevation of the north wing displays a replacement glazed timber door offset in a bay to the left of centre, flanking single windows at ground in three bays to the left and two bays to the right of the entry. A piended slate-hung dormer sits in the bay to the outer left, with arrow-slits below the eaves in bays at centre, left and right.

Throughout the building is a variety of two-, four-, twelve- and twenty-four-pane timber sash and case windows. The roof is covered in graded grey slate with crowstepped skews, corniced sandstone wallhead, ridge and apex stacks, and various circular and octagonal chimney cans.

An octagonal pond with roll-moulded coping lies to the south, containing a baluster sundial centred within, comprising a stepped octagonal base, overhanging octagonal table, and iron gnomon.

The boundary treatment includes a rubble-coped wall to the north and a square-coped wall to the south. Random rubble gatepiers flank the entry, featuring projecting cornices surmounted by pyramidal rubble tiers, with replacement two-leaf boarded timber gates.

The interior was not inspected during the 1996 survey.