Outbuilding Adjoining To N, Buckstane Farmhouse, 265 Braid Road, Edinburgh

Outbuilding Adjoining To North, Buckstane Farmhouse, 265 Braid Road, Edinburgh

This is a farmhouse dating from 1785, with an upper storey added in the early 19th century and further additions and alterations made later. It was reconstructed in 1927. The building comprises a two-storey, three-bay rectangular plan main house with single-storey former outbuilding ranges extending to the north and south.

The construction consists of coursed sandstone rubble to the ground floor of the west side of the house and parts of the ranges on this side, with mixed rubble used elsewhere. The building features droved and stugged sandstone dressings with polished margins to the openings of the main house. Most windows have projecting stone sills, except on the ground floor of the house. The structure displays long and short quoins and coped gables.

The west (principal) elevation presents a symmetrical arrangement, with a central entrance flanked by windows. The entrance comprises a two-leaf boarded timber door with a lintel inscribed with what appears to be the date 1785. The flanking single-storey ranges, formerly farm outbuildings, are set back slightly. The range to the left is built in two sections: the part adjoining the house has an entrance with a glazed patio door and a single window to its left. A slightly lower section to the left has a piended roof, with a gable-headed window to the right and a former open-sided section (now with set-back glazing) to the left, supported on two cast-iron columns. The section to the right of the house features a wide cart entrance with two-leaf boarded timber doors, with a glazed door entrance to the left and two windows further to the left. Between these windows is a stone inscribed with what appears to be the date "3 jully 22 Day May".

The east elevation includes a single-storey piended-roofed extension (a former entrance porch) at the centre of the main house, with single windows to the return on either side (that to the right was formerly a door). The current entrance, with a glazed door, is to the left of the porch. The right range has two windows in the section adjoining the house and four windows with later 20th-century concrete architraves in the section to the right, with an entrance between the 3rd and 4th windows featuring a similar architrave. The left range has an entrance to the right with an adjacent small window immediately to its right, two windows to the left, and a truncated projecting masonry section in between. A similar projecting section at the far left, set at an angle, probably represents the remains of a former horse engine that once existed to the east.

The north and south elevations are largely blank, apart from a small window to the upper storey on the north side of the main section of the house. Stone coping surmounts the gables. The roofs are covered with grey slate; that to the end of the north range is piended. Coped gablehead stacks serve the main body of the house, with a single coped ridge stack serving the south range. Cast-iron rainwater goods are in place.

Internally, the main body of the house retains a timber winding staircase with a central newel opening off the central entrance hall. An early or original fireplace with a plain stone surround is located in the room to the south of the entrance. A small recess in the wall to the left and a larger recess to the right (fitted with two-leaf timber doors) are also present.

The boundary walls are constructed of rubble. The section along Braid Road has rubble coping and two entrance gateways. The northern gateway has a plaque mounted on it explaining the history of the Buckstane, a small standing stone situated below. The south gateposts have ashlar coping with ball finials, probably dating from the 1927 reconstruction. A taller section of wall with ashlar coping to the north appears to be the earliest.

The remains of a circular well, approximately three feet in diameter, lie to the west of the house. It is constructed with coursed rubble walls and is approximately 75 centimetres deep, with the lower sections infilled.

The windows are predominantly 12-pane timber sash and case windows throughout.