Johnstounburn House

Johnstounburn House is a large and rambling 2-storey mansion incorporating work from the early 17th century, substantially enlarged and altered over subsequent centuries. The building is constructed in red rubble sandstone with harl-pointing and ashlar dressings, featuring chamfered arrises to windows.

The 17th century core forms an east-west gabled block with asymmetrical elevations and irregular windows. The main north elevation features a gabled bay, gabled dormerheads (added in 1895), five ground floor windows, four first floor windows, and two attic windows in the gableheads. A porch with crenellated parapet sits across the re-entrant angle formed with the 1746 wing, and includes a roll-moulded door surround with panel above (currently bearing a coaching plaque) and flanking window. The south elevation displays two advanced gabled bays with late 19th century additions and alterations to doors. The west elevation has a door inserted to the right, with rounded corners corbelled to square above and an attic window in the gablehead. A garden wall and gateway adjoin the building at ground level.

In 1746, a 2-storey classically detailed piend-roofed wing was added at right angles to the north-south axis at the north end. This block features four bays to the west elevation with three irregularly spaced windows at ground level above a bank course. The first floor contains four windows with moulded and lugged surrounds in what was the dining room, with rusticated quoins to the first floor. A later crenellated convex bay with narrow round-arched slits was also added.

Around 1863, the Broun family commissioned a 4-storey baronial addition to the east end, featuring a rectangular plan with gabled bays and apex stacks. The building incorporates rounded corners corbelled to square at the northeast, and a corbelled crenellated tower at the northwest angle. A corbelled parapet and bartizan with waterspouts mark the northeast angle. The east elevation has a doorway to the outer left, near-symmetrical generous windows, and a former blocked door. The south elevation displays two gabled bays with windows at ground, first, second, and attic levels, and bartizans corbelled at angles with rope moulding and candle-snuffer roofs. Gutterheads are dated 1863.

The building features small-pane glazing patterns predominantly in sash and case windows throughout. Gabled dormerheads appear on the 1863 addition, with a swept dormer added to the south elevation in 1895. The roofing comprises grey slates with fish-scale tiling to the bartizans. Ball and taper lead finials crown the round tower and bartizans. Coped end stacks are present throughout, along with crowstepped gables featuring beak skewputts and stone finials to initialled gabled dormerheads (1895). Thistle gutterheads mark the north side. The Leadbetter and Fairley alterations of 1895 included the addition of gabled dormerheads to the north and the initials of Andrew Usher on one dormerhead.

The interior has been sensitively converted to serve as a hotel. The stone-flagged entrance vestibule opens to rooms featuring 18th century panelling in the first floor dining room, which also retains Jacobean plasterwork and lugged bolection-moulded door surrounds. The staircase of the original mansion displays two wall paintings attributed to Robert Norie from the mid-18th century: one after Pietro da Cortona and the other after Il Borgognone. A turret bedroom contains a marble washbasin and sash and case mirror, and service bells have been retained throughout.

The adjoining garden wall is harled with a manner overthrow to the pedestrian gateway, which has ashlar coping and a portcullis panel on the overthrow. A rubble terrace wall by the east elevation overlooks marshy land below.

The earliest reference to Johnstounburn dates to 1260. The early to mid-17th century building was known as "The Highwayman's Haunt" and served as a coaching inn for the London-Edinburgh traffic. The Borthwick family later acquired the property, certainly by the early 19th century. In the later 18th century it passed to the Broun family, who commissioned the mid-19th century work. In 1894, Andrew Usher, the brewing magnate, undertook further alterations including the addition of his initials to a dormerhead. The property subsequently passed to the Crookshank family, who retained ownership until the 1960s. The dining room panelling shares similarities with that at Gilmerton House, Athelstaneford.