Stables, Ratho Hall, Edinburgh

Stables, Ratho Hall, Edinburgh

This is an early 19th-century classical house of 2 storeys and attic over a raised basement, arranged on a 5-bay rectangular plan. The main facade is fronted in ashlar with ashlar margins and moulded architraves, while the rear and sides are constructed of whinstone with stugged sandstone margins. The building features an eaves band and cornice, a band course between basement and ground floor, and rusticated quoins.

The south-facing main elevation is the principal frontage. At its centre is a deep-set door approached by an oversailing arched ashlar stair with delicate ironwork railings. The doorway is framed by a corniced Roman Doric doorpiece with an enriched sun-burst fanlight and a raised 9-panelled door (modern) bearing an Edinburgh handle. Flanking windows flank the door, with further windows symmetrically placed at 1st floor level. Segmental-headed dormers are positioned over the penultimate bays to right and left. The basement is finished in droved ashlar and contains 5 barred windows symmetrically arranged. A 1930s addition is recessed to the right of the main elevation, itself 2 storeys and 3 bays in a complimentary style, with chanelled ashlar at ground level (containing a garage and storage area) and a rendered upper floor. This addition features an eaves band, a door to the outer left, 3 regularly placed upper-level windows, and 3 garage doors at ground level divided by channelled pillars on the east return, with 2 symmetrically placed upper-level windows.

The north rear elevation is centred on a stair bay containing a Y-traceried, fixed-pane round-arched window with keystone and impost blocks. Windows are positioned to the outer left and right at 1st floor level, with a blocked opening to the left of the outer right window. A mid-19th-century half-piend projecting bay extends from the ground outer left (an addition to the dining room) and features a large tripartite window at its centre with stugged margin. A service wing immediately abuts the right side and projects beyond the line of the left bay, featuring a half-piend roof with a flat-roofed extension to the right. A rendered single-storey service wing extends from the house at the outer right.

The east elevation of the original house is largely blank, with a window at 1st floor level to the outer right and a blocked window at the centre now obscured by the garage addition. The west elevation is blank, with a rendered wall of the service wing at ground level.

Throughout, the windows are 12-pane sash and case units, except for the stair window which features Y-tracery mullions in a 12-pane sash arrangement. The roof is covered in grey slate with tall corniced gablehead stacks.

The interior is distinguished by fine classical decoration. The vestibule features a Gothic-glazed hall screen delicately trimmed with composition vines. Ornate bas-relief plasterwork adorns the ceilings, with a Gothick cornice throughout. The stair hall contains a dado and winding cantilevered stair with slender cast-iron balusters and a wooden handrail. Above is a circular fan-centred ceiling with bas-relief plasterwork. To the right of the hall is the dining room, which has a gently curved north end with a sideboard recess framed by fluted engaged Corinthian columns supporting a festoon frieze, palmette, and moulded cornice. This room contains 6 doors decorated with a Classical figurative frieze and a delicately carved pine chimneypiece. The plain drawing room at the rear was extended in the 19th century.

Southwest of the house is a walled garden of approximately 60 by 50 metres. It is constructed of squared and coursed whinstone with sandstone margins and flat sandstone coping. The garden is of terraced-type design, terraced into a south-facing slope towards the Union Canal. It has a curved northern end with straight east and west walls. Doors are positioned at either side of the curved end and at the southern end of both east and west walls, each detailed with a polished sandstone surround and contrasting sandstone and whinstone margins.

West-southwest of the house is the stables range. Built where the ground slopes from north to south, this is a single-storey, long rectangular-plan structure of rubble whinstone with stugged sandstone quoins and margins. A segmental-arched cart entrance to the outer left features exposed voussoirs and a 2-leaf wooden door, with a half-piend dormered hay-loft door above. A carriage door (probably altered from an arch) flanks to the right, with a window immediately beyond. A further door and small window are positioned to the outer right. A random cobbled area extends directly in front of the stable block, with a lean-to bay recessed to the outer right. The interior still functions as a stable with wooden loose boxes. The roof is covered in graded grey slate with ashlar coping to the skews and coped gablehead stacks. The immediate forecourt is finished with setts. The windows throughout are 6-pane fixed glazing.