Creggs, 14 Chapel Place, Inverkeithing

Creggs, 14 Chapel Place, Inverkeithing

A 2-storey, square-plan house of circa 1920 in the late Arts and Crafts style, formerly functioning as a doctor's surgery. The building has a late 20th century addition to the south, which encapsulates a former recessed single-storey service wing and creates a 2-storey bay to the left. It is rendered with diagonally droved red sandstone dressings, a red Rosemary tiled roof, and is notable for its distinctive architectural detailing and refined interior finishes.

The principal (east) elevation features a central full-height canted and shaped gabled bay with 4-light windows, topped with a painted zinc canopy with overhanging eaves at first floor and an embossed thistle to the centre. To the ground floor right sits a Venetian window with narrow keystones to the central arched opening, while a late 20th century tripartite window occupies the ground floor left. Breaking eaves piended dormer windows serve the outer bays at first floor, with that to the left being a late 20th century insertion. A single-storey entrance porch is recessed to the right.

The north entrance elevation comprises three bays. An off-centre, coped flat-roofed porch sits to the right, with the secondary entrance door (leading to the former surgery) flanked directly to the left by a window, and a further window to the far left lighting the vestibule to the main entrance. The main shaped doorway with plain timber door is located on the left return of the east elevation. A central breaking eaves dormer window is present, and to the far left a window is set within a raised and corbelled-out chimney flue. An asymmetrical gable to the left of an elongated chimney stack (shouldered to the right) completes this elevation.

The west rear elevation contains four bays arranged in a 3-1 pattern. Central to this elevation is a tall vertical 3-light stair window, flanked by bipartite windows at ground floor level and breaking eaves piended dormers at first floor. The adjoining service wing bay to the right features a door with a small window to the left and a window above.

The south elevation presents three bays with a square central ground floor window, bipartite windows to the left at both ground and first floors arranged identically.

The windows throughout are predominantly tall leaded lattice casements (with look-alike windows to the modern extension). Some 6-pane over plate glass timber sash and case windows are found to the rear. The roof is steeply piended with red Rosemary tiles and red sandstone ashlar skews to gablets. The elongated coped and shouldered rendered stacks are topped with circular clay cans.

The interior displays restrained yet refined Arts and Crafts treatment. The former doctor's surgery room occupies the north-east corner of the plan, directly off the vestibule to the secondary entrance, and contains a moulded cast-iron fireplace relocated from an upstairs bedroom. The hall features Douglas Fir dado panelling with a snug to the left of the central staircase and a Delft tiled fireplace neatly inserted into the panelling. The plain Douglas Fir timber staircase is embellished with pierced foliate panels at regular intervals, and the stair window features stained glass detailing to rippled glass. The ground floor sitting room displays a stylised dentilled cornice. The dining room has a plain cornice with bracketed shelving above the picture rail surrounding the entire room. Upper bedrooms feature tiled fire surrounds, while the principal bedroom contains an Adams style chimneypiece, suggesting it may formerly have served as the drawing room.

Boundary walls of random rubble with coping extend to the south, west, north and east. Two sets of gatepiers are incorporated into or adjacent to the east wall along Chapel Place: small square-plan gatepiers of plain gothic design (leading to earlier 19th century houses formerly on site) and free-standing square-plan rusticated gatepiers with shallow pyramidal caps to the right of the east wall.