Stables, Luffness House

Luffness House is a baronial mansion with an exceptionally complex building history, standing on the site of an earlier castle that was sacked in 1548. The nucleus of the present house is a tower house of 1584 — a datestone panel bearing that year and the initials of the builder, Sir Patrick Hepburn, and his wife Isobel, has been reset in the south-west bartizan. The tower house is largely obscured by 19th-century additions.

The principal phases of later building are as follows: William Burn extended the house to the north-west in 1822 and filled in the south-west corner; Thomas Brown added a kitchen wing in 1825 and a west extension in 1841; David Bryce worked on the house between 1846 and 1874, adding a gunroom and stable courts to the south-east, a service wing to the north-west, and carrying out further additions including interior remodelling; work continued under D and J Bryce in 1891 with a billiard room addition, followed by Barbour and Bowie in 1907.

TOWER HOUSE

The tower house is clearly of more than one period, as indicated by a change in the quoins and window mouldings above the second string course of the stair window. The 1584 tower is orientated east to west, with the stair continued in a square tower to the south. Construction is random rubble with ashlar dressings. Two wide-mouthed gun loops remain visible at ground level, and further gun loops survive in two bartizans carried on chequered and rope-moulded corbels at the south-west and north-east corners. The stair to the upper levels is contained in a turret set in the south-east re-entrant angle, carried on a squinch arch.

19TH-CENTURY ADDITIONS

A two-storey wing with a canted bay at its east end was added to the north-east of the main block in 1802–3. It has large roll-moulded windows at ground and first floor levels; its original polygonal hipped roof, recorded in drawings by Gilpin, was replaced with gables inset with re-used panels of foliate carving by Thomas Brown in 1841.

William Burn infilled the south-west angle between the stair tower and the main block in 1822 with a three-storey wing, slightly recessed on plan, built in contrasting red squared rubble. The ground and first floor windows are flanked by re-used 17th-century decorative panels, with a heraldic panel to the gable. The south-west skewputt, also re-used, bears the Hepburn initials SPH and EH. All openings have broad stop-chamfered surrounds and bipartite window openings; there is a balcony with scrolled Jacobean brackets at first floor level. A dog-leg stair at the north-west gable, probably also by Burn, has a similar balustrade.

Thomas Brown's two-storey kitchen block of 1825, built to the north-east in a picturesque style by masons Hunter and Bowman of Aberlady, features a large arched service door with an ornamented surround, a large trefoil window above, and overhanging bracketed cat-slide eaves. The adjoining block, set at right angles, has two tall round-arched windows, and a steeply pitched gabled bellcote dormer corbelled out and breaking the eaves at the centre, with a round-arched opening to the bell. There is a giant blind arcade with a window above on the north return.

In 1846 David Bryce enlarged the main entrance on the east elevation, adding stone benches flanking the doorway. A three-storey round tower, corbelled to square at the upper storey and probably also by Bryce, provides service access and connects via a tunnel from the north, terminating in The Pend leading to the main road. This features a large round-arched gateway with two orders of facetted blocks, possibly incorporating earlier stonework, topped by a blind parapet carried on square corbels.

EAST WING AND STABLES

The east wing and stables, in baronial style, were built by David Bryce and later John Bryce between 1846 and 1891, adjoining the house to the south-east and connected by a screen wall with an archway.

The east wing is dated 1891 and is a two-storey wing with a turret and an arcade at ground floor level. The first floor is corbelled out to the east. Pedimented dormerheads with finials break the eaves; one dormer to the east has a blank circular panel, possibly intended for a clock. Windows are sash and case, with a two-pane lower sash and nine-pane upper sash glazing pattern. The wing has crowstepped gables, bracketed eaves, grey slates, ashlar-coped wallhead, paired diamond stacks, and a piended rooflight. A dated and initialled panel appears on the gable at the rear.

The billiard room was added by Barbour and Bowie in 1907 as a single-storey addition to the garden elevation of the gunroom. It has a canted five-light bay to the left with a crenellated parapet, and two windows to the right breaking the eaves in semi-circular pedimented dormerheads with a dated, initialled panel and scrollwork. A polygonal turret advances at the right with four windows. A crenellated curtain wall and two canted bays at ground level link the addition to the main house.

The stable yard is enclosed by a battlemented wall with a blind arcade at ground level, and a turret at the north-east corner with a candlesnuffer roof, finial, and weather-vane. Entrance is through a large round-arched battlemented gateway in the curtain wall, with a further gateway to the east having square gatepiers.

The stables themselves form a two-storey, double-pile block with two doorways and windows at ground level, and six windows at first floor level breaking the eaves in pedimented dormerheads. The building has since been converted to housing, with a forestair to the first floor to the east. There is a turret with a weather-vane, and part of the court to the west has been glazed over. Sash and case windows throughout have predominantly a two-pane glazing pattern, with some 12-pane glazing at the rear. The building has crowstepped gables, ornamented stone finials, raised grouped diamond stacks attributed to Burn, grey slates, and some decorative gutter fixtures. A mounting block survives in the courtyard.

INTERIOR

The interior is largely by David Bryce. The entrance hall was remodelled with glazed doors formed like yetts and a fireplace dated 1849. The library was extended to the south-west by Burn, with the interior completed by Bryce in 1874; it features a geometric plasterwork ceiling and cedarwood panelling by Wirth Brothers of Edinburgh, encompassing bookshelves, with a block cornice and plant ornament. A double-sided chimneypiece divides the room into two, with Jacobean motifs and pilasters with plant ornament to the cedarwood overmantels. A wide newel stair leads to the first and second floors in the south stair tower by Bryce, while the top floor and attic are served by a turret stair. Some original moulded door surrounds and small wall chambers survive.

ITALIAN GARDEN AND SUNDIALS

A sunken parterre to the south of the house is laid out in the form of a wheel of radiating beds enclosed by lawn. Until the First World War it extended into the moat with herbaceous borders. Near a well in the south court there is a wall-mounted sundial featuring a sculpted soldier's head. A second sundial, dated 1759, serves as the centrepiece of the Italian garden.

HISTORICAL CONTEXT

The site of Luffness is an early Norse settlement; graves have been found within the grounds and foundations. The barony was associated with the de Lindsay and Bickerton families in the 12th, 13th, and 14th centuries. The remains of a Carmelite Friary, which received a grant in alms from the estate, are situated within the policies to the west. The present house is built on the site of an early 16th-century fortification, of which extensive remains survive in the grounds, including evidence of four corner towers — one now accommodating an ice house — and a wet moat. The fort is said to have been constructed by General de Thermes to defend Aberlady Bay and access to Haddington during the so-called "rough wooing" in the early 1540s. It was ordered to be destroyed in 1551, after which the Hepburn family took possession in the 1580s and built the present tower house on the foundations of the earlier keep. Luffness was bought by the Earl of Hopetoun in 1739 and has since been occupied by the Hope family. It is thought that the 17th-century sculpted ornamental plaques re-used on the east and south-west additions by Burn may have come from the first Hopetoun House.

The walled garden to the west, along with the garden walls, Gardener's House, Water Tower, and Dovecots, are listed separately and form a group with this building.