69 Milton Road, Kirkcaldy

69 Milton Road, Kirkcaldy

This is a Grade B terrace of seven villas on a corner site, designed by the architects Swanston and Legge in 1898. The building was altered by J D Swanston in 1903, with minor later alterations following.

The terrace is two storeys with an attic storey. It is built in bull-faced ashlar with contrasting red sandstone ashlar dressings. The principal feature is the half-timbered jettied first floor and attic with an oriel window. The porches are arcaded and tiled with Rosemary tiles. The windows have stone mullions with stop-chamfered arrises.

The east elevation of No. 69 (the principal frontage) shows a bipartite window in an advanced centre bay of ashlar at ground floor, below brackets supporting the jettied first floor. A wide doorway with two-leaf, part-glazed timber door stands to the left return, with a large corbelled bracket to its right and a further bracket above. The first floor has a decorative band below four small windows, and a further jettied gablehead with a tripartite oriel window. A bay to the left contains a bipartite window at ground level and a smaller tripartite window above. To the right is a small single-storey harled polygonal extension (1990s) in the re-entrant angle, with a window above. Beyond this are two slightly lower bays (possibly 1903), each with a window at ground floor and a bipartite window at first floor.

The south (principal) elevation is thirteen bays, grouped as four-four-four-one. No. 69 features a broad, higher gabled bay with a full-height canted tripartite window and a blocking course below a small window in the gablehead.

Nos. 71 and 73 have centre bays with two-leaf timber doors (one to the right, one modern to the left) flanking two small windows, all set behind a four-arch porch with swept roof. The cills adjoin two wide tripartite windows at first floor close to the eaves. Canted tripartite windows appear at each floor to the outer left, with the first-floor windowhead breaking the eaves into a polygonal roof. To the outer right is a slightly advanced tripartite window with cornice and blocking course; the bipartite windowhead above breaks the eaves into a half-timbered gablet.

Nos. 75 and 77 follow the same pattern as Nos. 71 and 73, with a two-leaf timber door to No. 75 and a part-glazed modern door to No. 77.

Nos. 79 and 81 are similarly arranged but both have modern doors. They are balanced by a large bay to the outer left, with canted tripartite windows breaking the eaves line into a gablehead with a small window above.

The west elevation of No. 81 is asymmetrical in fenestration, with a truncated, shouldered wallhead stack positioned off-centre to the right.

The windows throughout use small-pane glazing patterns over two-pane lower sashes in timber sash and case windows. No. 69's east elevation features coloured and leaded glass to the centre bay and a four-pane glazing pattern in the timber sash and case windows to the outer right bays. No. 81 has modern glazing. The roof is tiled with Rosemary tiles. Coped ashlar stacks with some cans, and ashlar-coped skews with decorative skewputts are fitted with cast-iron downpipes featuring decorative rainwater hoppers and fixings. The eaves are overhanging with exposed beams and plain bargeboarding.

In the interior (only lower floors examined): No. 69 contains a polygonal hall with an open-beamed ceiling. The bipartite window and door glazing feature coloured leaded glass (the vestibule door has modern glass). A carved timber fireplace carries the lintel inscription "EAST WEST HOMES BEST" and is decorated with blue Delft tiles. The timber stair has ball-finialled newels and decorative cast-iron bell-pulls to the panelled dado. The ground-floor sitting room to the south features honeycomb plaster ceiling panelling, a plain cornice and picture rail.

No. 81's ground-floor sitting room has a dentilled cornice, picture rail, and a cast-iron horseshoe fireplace with timber surround.

The boundary walls are low saddleback-coped rubble walls to the south and east; higher coped rubble boundary walls stand elsewhere.