Outbuildings and boundary wall, The Cottage, Prestonmill

The Cottage is a small, two-storey, symmetrical, three-bay vernacular cottage dating from the later 18th century, situated in the centre of Prestonmill on the A710 on the Southerness peninsula, approximately 14 miles south of Dumfries. It sits on low garden ground that slopes down to the east towards the Prestonmill Burn, adjacent to and lower than the road bridge. The building is Category C listed, and its statutory address includes the boundary walls and outbuildings to the northwest.

EXTERIOR

The cottage is built on rough foundations using an unusually distinctive rubble stonework construction of very large field boulders packed with small pinnings. All external elevations are painted. Cast iron drainage grilles run around the base of the sunken west gable and part of the front wall.

The principal elevation is symmetrical. The small square first-floor windows sit immediately below the eaves, and the ground-floor and gable windows have been enlarged at some point. The thackstanes at the bases of the chimney stacks are evidence that the roof was previously thatched. The roofline itself remains intact, with no later dormers or rooflights added.

The windows are predominantly later 20th century replacements. The ground floor has four-pane timber sash and case windows, while the small first-floor windows have top-hung timber casements. The front entrance door is boarded timber beneath a drip canopy.

The roof is covered in graded grey slate with stone skews and stone ridges. Each gable carries a painted chimney stack with a cornice, thackstane, and a pair of hexagonal clay chimney pots. The west gable stack is rubble construction and the east gable stack is brick.

OUTBUILDINGS AND BOUNDARY WALL

A small, painted, L-plan outhouse in stone and brick with a shallow mono-pitch roof is built against the curved west retaining boundary wall, which rises in height towards the north. Adjacent to the northwest corner of the house is a small painted brick outbuilding with a corrugated sheet roof, formerly used as an outside toilet.

INTERIOR

The interior was inspected in 2019. The plan form largely appears to date from the 19th century. The ground-floor rooms have exposed timber beams, and the upper rooms have partly exposed rough-hewn timber roof trusses. Wide board doors survive to the upstairs rooms. Most other fittings, including the staircase, are later 20th century replacements.

EXCLUSIONS

The flat-roofed brick kitchen addition to the rear — built on the rubble foundations of a former outshot — and the detached flat-roofed garage within the west boundary are both excluded from the listing under Section 1(4A) of the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) (Scotland) Act 1997.

HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT

Prestonmill is a small rural group of around ten houses and first appears on Moll's map of 1745, where it is recorded as 'Prestoun'. Thomson's map of 1832 names it 'Preston Mill'. Neither map depicts individual buildings at the scale used.

The 1795 Statistical Account of Scotland records the Parish of Kirkbean as part of the local Oswald Estate, noting that 'some years ago the village was inhabited by 24 farmers….at present only 3 with their cottages'. Given its central position within the settlement and the evidence of its design and construction materials, The Cottage is believed to have already been standing at that time.

By 1834, the Church of Scotland Veto Rolls recorded ten families living in Prestonmill. The Cottage appears on the 1st Edition Ordnance Survey map (surveyed 1851, published 1854), on which it is also marked as a post office. The Ordnance Survey Name Book of 1848–51 describes it as 'a small dwelling house in which is kept a post office — a runner goes daily to New Abbey and returns carrying the mails.' The map shows the cottage in its existing L-plan form, situated across the road from Prestonmill Cornmill and its mill pond, in a village that also included a smithy, a farm steading, and other dwellings.

The current listed building record, originally written in 1971, noted that from 1845 the cottage was known as the Bourtree Inn. An article in the Dumfries and Galloway Standard of that year recorded a meeting of the Kirkbean Curling Club at the Bourtree Bush Inn. A further article in the same newspaper from 1866 refers to it as the Bourtree Inn, Preston Mill. The off-centre windows in each gable are consistent with the known practice of 18th century roadside inns providing views of approaching carriages.

The statutory address, category of listing (changed from B to C), and listed building record were all revised in 2020. The building was previously listed under the name 'Prestonmill Village, Bridge House'.

SIGNIFICANCE

The Cottage is of architectural interest for its vernacular design and construction, which reflect its relatively early date. Its symmetrical principal elevation, thick rubble walls of unusually large field stones, small first-floor windows immediately below the eaves, surviving thackstanes, intact roofline, and exposed original timber beams and roof trusses all demonstrate the building's 18th century character and fabric. Although the ground-floor and gable windows have been enlarged and the interior largely modernised, the principal elevation and roofline remain substantially unaltered.

The building is also of historic and social interest as an early survival in Prestonmill with documented former uses as a post office and roadside inn. It is slightly unusual as a two-storey rural vernacular dwelling of this date, as other surviving dwellings of similar age in the village are single storey. Its setting — adjacent to the 19th century stone road bridge and mill lade, prominent when the village is approached from the west, and grouped with other buildings of similar date — reflects and reinforces its former role at the centre of a small rural community. The setting is considered largely unaltered from the late 18th and early 19th century, with no significant later developments.