St Margaret's Hope, North Queensferry

St Margaret's Hope is a substantial house in North Queensferry, originally built around 1829 and then significantly remodelled and extended in 1916 by Ernest Newton, a major English Arts and Crafts architect — notably his only known work in Scotland. The result is a large neo-Georgian composition in coursed squared sandstone rubble with droved ashlar dressings, combining the surviving northern portion of the original house with Newton's more extensive additions to the south. The site is steeply set, overlooking the Firth of Forth to the south-west, on a bay historically associated with St Margaret, future wife of King Malcolm Canmore, who is recorded as having landed here in 1069 on her journey from Orkney to Dunfermline.

The land was acquired from the Guildry of Dunfermline in 1825 by Elias Cathcart of Auchindrane, who built the original house in or shortly after 1829, naming it St Margaret's. The house passed to Captain William Elder in 1855 and subsequently to his heirs. In 1916 it was acquired by the Admiralty for use as the residence of the Commander in Chief, Coast of Scotland, at which point Ernest Newton was commissioned to carry out the remodelling. Known as Admiralty House during the First World War, it remained the residence of the Rosyth Naval Commander until 1996, when it passed to the Scottish Executive and was subsequently leased to a private company, Universal Steels. The original 1829 house is thought to have been symmetrical; its northern half survives largely intact, while its southern half was absorbed into Newton's 1916 additions.

The building is two storeys for the most part, with some single-storey sections at the original house and adjoining service blocks, along with modern garages to the south. A base course runs at the 1829 block, and a cill course at first-floor level runs across both blocks. Openings at the rear elevation retain their original moulded architraves, while later window surrounds feature plain architraves with recessed apron panels set within them. A carved panel dated 1916 marks the central advanced bays.

THE EAST (PRINCIPAL) ELEVATION

The east elevation has eleven bays in all, projecting and receding irregularly. The seven-bay 1916 addition occupies the left-hand portion. At the far left is a two-storey three-bay advanced section with three windows at ground and first floor. To its right is a recessed section with one ground-floor window and two bipartite first-floor windows. Further right is another advanced two-storey three-bay section, with three ground-floor windows and two first-floor windows flanking a central carved panel bearing a Royal Naval wreath and anchor motif dated 1916, with a hood-mould above. This advanced section also has return windows at first-floor level on both its right and left flanks.

The recessed four-bay 1829 section occupies the right-hand portion of the elevation. At its left is a two-storey single bay with ground and first-floor windows. To its right, a further two-storey single bay, set back still further, is fronted by a projecting three-bay ashlar pilastered entrance porch with a shallow pediment and blocking course. The centre bay of the porch is slightly advanced and contains two-leaf timber panelled outer doors with a half-glazed inner door, flanked by windows on each side, with a first-floor window centred above and a small square window to the left. The penultimate right bay has a single-storey pedimented form, with a window below and rooflights illuminating a cupola within. The wide far-right end bay has a blind window.

THE NORTH ELEVATION

The north elevation was only partially visible at the time of survey in 2002. It shows an open pedimented plain gable with a small blocked opening to the right.

THE WEST (SHORE FRONT) ELEVATION

The west elevation faces the sea and stands two storeys on a plinth course. The 1916 addition to the right has six bays arranged in a 2-1-2-1 pattern, with the window bays projecting. The right-hand projecting bay is pedimented and has a tripartite window at first-floor level; a further tripartite window appears at the fifth bay from the left. The 1829 block to the left has two substantial canted bay windows — the right-hand one two storeys tall, the left-hand one single storey — with a timber balcony and roof set between them at ground-floor level and a small modern timber conservatory projecting from the centre of the left canted bay. A single-storey block is deeply recessed at the far left.

THE SOUTH ELEVATION

The south elevation adjoins a double piended single-storey service block. There is a central first-floor window and a rectangular piended dormer with a bipartite window centred above.

WINDOWS AND ROOF

Windows are predominantly 12-pane timber sash and case. Roofs are piended and pitched, covered in grey slates. Wide ashlar coped skews run to the single-storey north gable. The 1916 section has seven coped stop-chamfered ashlar chimney stacks; the 1829 section has two octagonal stacks. All have circular clay cans.

INTERIOR

The house retains much of its late Georgian interior within the original 1829 section.

The hall is in the 1829 section and features moulded door surrounds, a key-blocked arch leading through to the 1916 addition to the south, a timber staircase with alternating barley-twisted and rectangular-section balusters, a circular leaded cupola to the right of the entrance, and an Adam-style chimneypiece surround on the north wall.

The drawing room, also in the 1829 section at the rear, is a long rectangular double room overlooking the sea through the canted bay windows. The two halves are divided by a large pilastered opening, now permanently blocked by a wall inserted around 1996. The room has a Greek key and egg-and-dart cornice, a moulded picture rail, and two white marble rococo or Louis XV chimneypieces acquired in 1917 after the Admiralty took over. The southern chimneypiece has scallop and fern carving; the northern one has a scrolled heraldic panel over a small scallop. Both have 1916 neo-Georgian grates and slips with elliptical bas-relief panels depicting allegorical scenes.

The dining room, now used as a drawing room, is in the 1916 section at the front of the house and has a vigorous dentilled cornice, dado panelling, and a panelled surround and overmantel to an 18th century-style fireplace. The fireplace has a blue-veined bolection-moulded marble slip set in a lugged timber chimneypiece with a plain pulvinated frieze and dentilled cornice. The original cast-iron grate is decorated with swags, bows and violins.

The board room is in the 1829 section, in the single-storey end block. It has a decorative rosebud and thistle cornice, a moulded picture rail, and a projecting corner cupboard with a gothic tracery timber panelled door.

BOUNDARY WALLS, WALLED GARDEN AND ARCHWAY

Boundary walls to the west along the shore front are of coped random rubble, running at upper level bordering the house and down to the shore to enclose the lower garden.

The walled garden to the south dates from around 1829 and encloses a rectangular garden that tapers towards the south. Its north wall forms the boundary to the main road. Construction is random rubble with hammer-dressed quoins. The north elevation has double timber boarded doors at the centre and a further timber boarded door to the right.

The archway on the drive to the north is from the earlier 19th century and is a wide segmental rubble archway incorporating relocated 17th century fragments from the Wrychtshouse at Bruntsfield. That building was constructed for William Napier (initials WN) and his wife Eliza Park (initials EP) and was demolished in 1800. The south face of the archway has a semicircular pediment with a cartouche inscribed and dated "WN IF SICVT OLIVA FRVCTIFERA 1376" — meaning "Fruitful as an olive." The north face has a triangular pediment with a coat of arms inscribed and dated "WN EP DITAT SERVATA FIDES 1570" — meaning "Faith preserved maketh rich."

Five cottages known as Welldean Cottages, built on the estate on land below the existing driveway in the later 1800s, were demolished in the 1960s to make way for garages.

This listing is grouped with the St Margaret's Hope gate lodge.