Gazebo, Secret Garden, Tyninghame House

A major baronial mansion designed by William Burn in 1829, incorporating elements of a 17th-century house. The building is a rambling four-storey structure with gabled projections and turrets arranged in a U-plan, with two and three-storey service projections to the east forming a service court. The walls are constructed of squared and snecked pink rubble with stugged ashlar quoins and pink and grey ashlar dressings. Stone mullions and transoms form the window details, with string courses running across the elevation.

The north entrance elevation features advanced gables to the left and right of a recessed centre, with a tall single-storey central porch projecting further forward. The doorway was altered by Schomberg Scott in 1961, executed in pale pink stone with a bolection-moulded surround and broken shaped pediment bearing heraldic arms. A pierced strapworked parapet runs above. A turret is set within a re-entrant angle to the left with narrow slits. The gabled centre bay contains stair windows of four and three lights. A projecting rectangular multi-light window bay rises through ground and first floors to the left outer bay, surmounted by a parapet and set behind two irregularly positioned gables. Two recessed two-storey bays are adjoined to the outer left, with a rectangular porch set in a re-entrant angle. Scrolled ornament decorates the gabled dormerheads. A three-storey gabled bay projects to the left with high walls and ashlar gatepiers beyond to the service court.

The south garden elevation presents a deep U-plan gabled bay at the centre, with a three-storey canted parapetted window flanked by windows at second floor and gablet dormers. A stair turret is set within a left re-entrant with a bowed projection adjoined to first floor height.

The west courtyard elevation contains a semi-circular projecting bay at the centre, flanked to the left by an almost blank gable with a raised battered stack.

The east courtyard elevation features a stair turret off-centre to the left with two flanking windows at the centre. A recessed outer bay to the right contains an angle stair turret and a consoled strapworked balcony. The south gable of the west wing displays a full-height projecting rectangular window bay with parapet. The south gable of the east wing has a canted bay to first floor height with the remains of a consoled balustrade. A pepper-pot turret crowns the upper floors at the outer right angle.

The west elevation is almost symmetrical, with a stair turret off-centre to the left featuring a balconied window and corbelled eaves course. Two windows flank to the left and three to the right, with scroll-ornamented gabled dormerheads to the fourth floor breaking the eaves. Shallow gables surmount two outer windows (north and south). Small attic windows occupy the gable head, whilst multi-light canted windows at ground and first floors feature the parapet detailing described above. A service court nestles into the east elevation with a doorway at its innermost point beneath a loggia at the north.

Throughout the building, sash and case windows display a small-pane glazing pattern. Decorative gutter heads embellish the eaves. Grey ashlar chimneystack clusters or linked arrangements, moulded at the coping, rise above the slate roof. Turrets are crowned with swept-in conical roofs topped by attenuated finials. Gable heads are finished with consoled crowsteps and skewputts.

The interior retains much original and eclectic decoration. Ornate plaster cornices and plasterwork ceilings survive throughout, along with bolection-moulded door surrounds. A Jacobean stairwell features plaster soffits. Original wallpapers remain in situ. A red marble Rococo chimneypiece adorns the gallery. The Dining Room contains a white pilastered and corniced chimneypiece of 18th-century date, possibly removed from Rushbrooke Hall in Suffolk. A white marble chimneypiece with a garland motif between an owl and monkey in the Lady's Drawing Room originates from Elie House. John Fowler designed pyramidal bookcases in the latter room, accompanied by William McLaren landscape murals of 1967 in the approaching passage. When recorded in 1987, the house was undergoing sensitive subdivision with minimal alterations necessary.

Terraces stepped down the south of the house feature stone steps with urn finials, leading to the ruins of St Baldred's Kirk, a Scheduled Monument. Stone-bordered square flower beds with base course parapets and bold consoles occupy the terraces.

To the west of the house lies a Secret Garden containing a fountain shielded by a stone wall incorporating fragments from the Kirk. A modern summerhouse in "Gothick" style, built circa 1960, stands in timber on a rubble parapet, alongside a light timber-trellised gazebo with a bellcote cap. A Venetian wellhead dated 1556 is sited in the courtyard.

A gateway stands to the northwest of the house near the walled garden. It comprises two rusticated red sandstone square piers with moulded cornices and stone acorn finials, with an ornate wrought-iron pedestrian gate featuring overflow panels worked in scroll and leaf detailing.