Ingliston House, Glasgow Road, Edinburgh

Ingliston House, Glasgow Road, Edinburgh

Thomas Brown designed this 2-storey Baronial mansion with attic and basement, completed in 1846. The building sits on falling ground to the north. It is constructed in squared and snecked sandstone with stugged finish and ashlar dressings, featuring a base course and chamfered reveals throughout.

The east elevation is the principal façade, comprising six bays. The second bay from the left contains a prominent 3-storey saddleback-roofed entrance tower with chamfered angles corbelled to square at the first floor. The entrance door itself has a lugged architrave with a blank panelled overdoor panel, above which sits a strapworked cartouche panel. The second floor projects over the first floor window and contains a smaller window. A circular stair tower set within a re-entrant angle to the right rises from basement to ground floor, topped with a stone conical roof. Narrow windows light the return to left on each floor, and the return to right at first and second floor. Pedimented dormerheads to the second floor windows break the eaves. A gabled bay recessed to the outer left contains ground and first floor windows with a blank panel in the gablehead, and features a gablehead stack and circular bartizan at the eaves with blind openings and an ashlar candlesnuffer roof crowned with a ball finial. Two lower recessed bays at centre contain tall ground floor windows over a basement recess and two first floor windows with gabled dormerheads. Two bays to the outer right are advanced and gabled with a central ground floor window, two first floor windows flanking an obliquely corbelled chimneybreast of the gablehead stack, a circular bartizan to the left angle with slate candlesnuffer roof and lead finial, and a square gabled bartizan to the right angle with ashlar saddleback roof and louvred openings (the latter round-arched on the rear elevation).

The south elevation steps back from left to right. An advanced gabled bay at the outer left has chamfered angles swept to square at first floor with windows to each floor, and a modern 2-faced clock in the gablehead. A gabled bay recessed left of centre contains ground and first floor windows and a gablehead panel. The centre is marked by a circular 3-stage stair tower breaking the eaves within a re-entrant angle, featuring arrowslit windows, dividing string courses and a slated conical roof with lead finial. A broad bay to the right of centre contains two tall ground floor windows and a first floor window at centre with gabled dormerhead, and is flanked by the circular bartizan described on the east elevation.

The west elevation comprises five bays. An advanced gabled bay at the outer left contains two basement windows and one window to each upper floor. A narrower recessed gabled bay to its right has a single basement window, tall ground floor window and windows to each floor above. The centre bay, further recessed, contains an offset basement window and a large Elizabethan stair window with stone mullions and transoms, with a dormerheaded window above. A broad advanced gabled bay to the right of centre features a buttress detail to the right, a ground floor window altered to a French window with modern oversailing access ramp, and a first floor window with an obliquely corbelled chimneybreast above. The outer bay to the right is recessed and largely blank, with a dormerheaded first floor window. All gableheads contain stacks.

The north (rear) elevation includes a single-storey and 2-storey service wing projecting from the basement to the left and a modern flat-roofed rectangular-plan addition to the right incorporating earlier fabric, enclosing a courtyard. Ashlar gatepiers close the entrance. Two windows light the principal floor of the main house to the left, with a blank wallplane above and a shouldered wallhead stack at centre, and a bartizan at the outer left. A basement door sits in a recessed gabled bay with two windows to the floors above. A window to the principal and first floor sits to the left of bays right of centre, with largely blank walling and a wallhead stack.

The windows throughout are sash and case with 12-pane glazing patterns; the two principal entrance elevation windows contain 4-pane glazing. Grey slates cover the roof, with crowstepped gables and ashlar ridge and coped stacks.

An ashlar balustrade with dies and square posts shields the basement recess to the outer right of the principal elevation.

The interior features good quality decoration in varying styles, predominantly Jacobethan in character. A round-arched vestibule door with fanlight opens into the hallway, where arches with pilaster panelled and moulded archivolts are present, together with a bolection moulded surround to a round-arched niche. The trabeated hall ceiling features strapwork bosses. An ornate cast-iron stair balustrade with strapwork detailing and timber rail supports a decorative pierced newel post coronet. The principal ground floor room contains a gilded strapwork ceiling with an alabaster Louis Quinze chimneypiece featuring Arts and Crafts tiled slip. Lugged door surrounds, panelled shutters and ingoes are found throughout. A general office displays a strapwork plasterwork ceiling.

Fine stained glass windows, all post-1899, include a 3 x 3 stair window with square leaded glazing displaying floral decoration and stained centre panels, ciphers in the top panels, doves at centre, and figures of Pomona, Ceres and Flora below in Pre-Raphaelite and Arts and Crafts manner. A further stained glass window in the vestibule similarly depicts an owl, craft industries and a dove.

A terrace balustrade of ashlar with dies and square posts shields the basement recess to the outer right of the principal elevation.