Sundial, Barnbougle Castle, Edinburgh

Sundial, Barnbougle Castle, Edinburgh

A Scottish Baronial house designed by James Maitland Wardrop of Wardrop and Reid in 1881, built on the site of and incorporating fabric from an earlier castle. The building occupies a projecting rock terrace and rises three storeys with an attic level.

The construction comprises stugged, squared and snecked rubble with polished ashlar sandstone dressings. Long and short quoins frame the corners, and various mouldings ornament the elevations. Stone mullions divide the bipartite windows. The building is topped with a crenellated parapet and crowsteps. Bartizans project from the north-west and south-west angles, equipped with water spouts and topped with finials above the gables.

The south elevation features five bays with a round-arched doorway in the penultimate right bay. Behind a projecting sandstone balustrade, the doorway contains a timber two-leaf door flanked by arrowslit windows. A datestone above the door reads '1881' and displays an armorial shield and coronet. The central bay contains stairwell windows rising between floors, while the penultimate left bay contains bipartite windows at ground floor with single windows above. The outer left bay includes an oriel window at first floor. A three-stepped mounting block stands near the south-east angle.

The west elevation is M-gabled with four bays. A round-arched timber doorway sits centrally, flanked by an arrowslit window and a single window, with single windows aligned above at first and second floors. The bays to either side contain variously single and tall bipartite windows. Chimneyheaded gables bridge the valley gutters with wallhead parapets and water spouts.

The north elevation comprises five bays with a glass and timber mullioned round-arched door in the penultimate left bay, with a tall bipartite window aligned above at first floor. Round-arched windows occupy the ground floor of the central and penultimate right bays, with tall bipartite windows above at first floor. An oriel window projects from the outer right bay, with a small attic window in the gablehead. A carved name panel with a monogram 'AR' appears at the centre of the second floor.

The east elevation is five bays. A projecting bay at centre displays a carved panel inscribed "Remove Not The Ancient Landmark Which Thy Fathers Have Set. Proverbs XXII.28". A two-storey corbelled circular turret rises in the re-entrant angle between the first and second floors, crowned with a conical roof and a weather-vane dated '1880'. The turret contains single windows including deep-set bull's-eye openings. The outer bays contain single windows arranged vertically across the storeys. A gabled dormerhead window at attic breaks the eaves on the left bay.

The interior contains a fine decorative scheme. A large turnpike stair occupies the south-east. The ground floor library features a beamed ceiling. The principal first floor library at the north-west has a timber barrel-vaulted ceiling rising through two storeys, an oak gallery, and a richly carved oak fireplace. Oak and walnut panelling appears throughout. The building includes late Victorian bathrooms.

Windows are predominantly timber small-pane sash and case, with some featuring leaded lights and stained glass. Gablehead, wallend and ridge stacks are coped with circular cans. Cast-iron rainwater goods complete the exterior.

A coped balustrade encloses the castle, incorporating a roll-moulded base with short rectangular and tooled sandstone balusters. Occasional panelled dies and ball finials ornament the balustrade.

Cellars extend beneath the castle to a half-moon battery at the south-east.

A 17th-century obelisk-style sundial with polyhedron dials stands to the south of the castle.