Winfields, East Loan, Prestonpans

Winfields, East Loan, Prestonpans

A substantial house of complicated L-plan, comprising an original section from the later 18th century in plain classical style, with a major enlargement dating to around 1840 in Scots Baronial style to the south and east. The building rises from two levels, presenting 2 storeys to the front (south) and 3 storeys to the rear (north).

The original section to the north is built in roughly squared and coursed brown sandstone rubble with roughly dressed margins, probably originally harled. The 1840s enlargement employs squared and snecked sandstone with ashlar dressings that are generally stugged, droved and chamfered.

The south (front) elevation reflects the complex building history. The 1840s addition comprises two tall bays to the left, with a gabled bay to the outer left, corbelled at first floor level. This gabled bay contains a tripartite window to the ground floor and a smaller tripartite window to the first floor, with a blind slit opening in the gablehead. The right bay of the addition has a bipartite window to the ground floor and a gable-headed window to the first floor breaking the eaves. The original 18th-century house is set well back to the right northeast, with a single-storey porch from the 1840s filling the re-entrant angle. This porch features a cornice and parapet, a 6-panelled 2-leaf door with a 2-pane fanlight, and a single window to the east. The outer right bay, also from the 1840s, is single storey with loft and basement, further recessed, and contains a single tripartite window below a small gablehead.

The east elevation is particularly complicated, presenting three gables and four bays. The two easternmost bays date from the 1840s and incorporate a projecting porch with a single window to the ground floor and two windows to the first floor. The window above the porch is shouldered with an ornately moulded surround and pedimented windowhead. The next bay to the north is from the original build, advanced in position, with a single window to each of the ground and first floors. The northernmost bay is a lower gabled feature from the 1840s with openings at three levels: a small window to the basement, windows to the ground floor, and a small round-arched window in the gablehead.

The north elevation shows the original house as the main section on the right (west), presenting a 3-storey, 3-bay symmetrical composition. A plain central door with 6 panels, the top 2 glazed, is flanked by two windows. The first floor has three windows, with the upper sash of the central window blind. Three windows appear on the second floor, with the central window slightly dropped. The lower section on the left dates from the 1840s, with a single window and two small windows on a lower gabled outshot that incorporates a door and entrance stair to the east.

The west elevation is irregular and undistinguished. A gabled section at the rear from the original build contains two windows to the ground floor, one window to the first floor, and one small window in the gablehead. The next bay to the right (south) has one window to the ground floor and one to the first floor. The southern section from the 1840s is blank.

Windows throughout are in timber sash and case, though irregular. The 1840s sections mostly feature plate glass, while some original 12-pane windows survive elsewhere. All roofs are gabled, finished in graded Scotch slate. The original house has plain skews and moulded skewputts, while the 1840s enlargement displays Baronial-style crowsteps and decorative finials.

The original house contains two gable stacks. The westmost is in ashlar with a plain cope and four octagonal cans; the eastmost has been rebuilt in smooth roughcast with four plain cans. The 1840s sections have three smaller stacks with moulded copes and octagonal cans, along with decorative rainwater hoppers and square-section downpipes.

Two lean-to stone sheds stand against the walls to the west at the rear of the original house, one roofed in slate and one in modern sheeting.

An 8-foot rubble boundary wall surrounds the property on all sides, with a ridge cope in the northern sections (older) and dressed and rounded cope to the southern sections. The gatepiers date from the 1840s, positioned at the southeast corner set back in short quadrant walls. They are constructed of square-section red ashlar with projecting pyramidal caps. A pedestrian gateway in the east wall is also in red ashlar. An internal garden wall incorporates the pediment and finial of an infilled late 17th-century (possibly) gateway.