Glenlair

Glenlair is a substantial country house built in 1830 by Walter Newall, with significant extensions added to the west by James Barbour in 1868, and further alterations and extensions to the east and north by Peddie and Kinnear in 1884. The house has been partially restored between 1992 and 1993 and is notable as the home of the renowned scientist James Clerk Maxwell.

The building features a 19th-century, irregular-plan, multi-gabled design, and is now largely in ruins. It includes a roofless, two-storey, two-bay central block designed by Walter Newall, alongside a derelict, partially-roofed, Baronial-style two-storey wing to the west, created by James Barbour. This wing has stone-mullioned windows, a two-storey canted window on the front gable, and a gabled porch on the side. To the east, there is a single- and two-storey, T-plan former service wing, primarily designed by Peddie and Kinnear, which features corbelled chimney stacks and was renovated to a habitable condition in 1992-3.

The exterior is constructed of squared, snecked whinstone rubble with polished red sandstone ashlar dressings. The 1830 section has an eaves course and raised window margins, while the later sections display long and short quoins. The inhabited section has small-pane glazing in timber sash and case windows. The building is topped with ashlar-coped skews with stone finials and scrolled skewputts on the two-storey section of the former service wing. The surviving roofs are covered with graded grey slate, while some parts of the former service wing use Welsh slate.