Carlekemp House, Abbotsford Park, North Berwick

Carlekemp House, Abbotsford Park, North Berwick

John Kinross, RSA, designed this 2-storey Cotswold Elizabethan style manor house in 1898. The building has been converted into flats, with an attic added to the main house on the west side and a single-storey motor house to the east.

The external walls are built of squared and snecked Rattlebag stone with ashlar dressings. Stone mullions and transoms feature throughout, with moulded margins. A moulded lintel course runs below the parapet at first floor level. The roofs are covered with Westmoreland slates, and decorative square lead guttering with gutter heads is installed throughout. Moulded coping to the chimney stacks retains the original cans.

The south elevation, which serves as the main entrance front, is asymmetrical. The roofline is higher to the main bays and lower to the former service end at the east, which is slightly recessed. A full-height gabled advanced doorway bay terminates with a decorative wrought-iron finial. The round-arched porch entrance is flanked by pilasters with obelisk finials. Above the arch sits a carved shield within a strapworked cartouche, with strapwork carving continuing on the pilasters and garlands to the obelisks. The first floor features a tripartite window. Small depressed-arched windows to the right are stepped at first floor level. An Elizabethan entrance hall window flanks the left side, with two grouped bipartites above. The outer left bay is gabled with a canted diminutive window bay at ground level, featuring rose garland carving to the margins and dolphins tumbling down the piend roof. Three bipartite windows right of centre are grouped closely with cusped lintels at ground floor. A full-height canted bay to the outer right of the advanced main house has a crenellated parapet, bipartite lights, and a hoodmoulded heraldic shield above the first floor windows. Three closely grouped bipartites appear to the left of the tower range, with a bipartite stair window bearing a dated cartouche panel of 1899 above. Bipartites appear to the right and in the first floor gabled outer bay.

The north elevation displays four gabled bays to the main house, recessed at the left and advanced at the outer right. Five-sided canted windows at ground floor to the outer right feature a parapet. Remaining windows are bipartite or tripartite, with transoms to most at ground floor. Heraldic shields and cartouches decorate the west bay and the return east-facing gable. An obliquely set door in a re-entrant angle to the right has a carved lintel. The service end at the left comprises four bays, with the outer bay gabled and featuring tall paired windows at ground and bipartites above. The motor house projects to the right with a pentice roof and gabletted crowsteps.

The west elevation contains advanced bays to the left with a full-height canted bay at the centre featuring bipartites, a hoodmoulded cartouche, and a crenellated parapet. Stacks to the left include offsets. Tripartite Elizabethan hall windows appear to the right and on the return to the south. Recessed bays to the right display paired tripartites at ground and bipartites at first floor. A doorway by the re-entrant angle has a decoratively carved lintel dated 1898 and depressed-arch bipartites above.

Windows throughout feature square lead-paned glazing to casement sashes, with some plate glass below transoms. Decorative bronze door handles are fitted throughout.

The interior is outstanding and well-regarded following subdivision into five flats. The carved woodwork and panelling were executed by Scott Morton and Company, Edinburgh. Fine chimneypieces with marble surrounds and decorative cast-iron grates are throughout. The galleried hall displays Jacobean details and an oriel above the doorway. Strapwork and ornate plasterwork enhance the principal spaces.

The boundary walls are constructed of squared and snecked Rattlebag rubble with stepped gablet coping by the lodge and rounded rubble coping to the outer walls.