Boundary Walls And Gate Piers, Old Duloch

Old Duloch is a substantial classical mansion house built around 1729, probably by John Cant who acquired the estate that year. It is a 2-storey house with raised basement and attic, arranged on a rectangular plan with 5 bays. The building is harled with dressed margins, quoin strips, and a moulded eaves course. A splayed stair leads to the main entrance on the principal south elevation, which is topped by a piended platform roof with small piended dormers.

The south elevation is symmetrical. The main entrance comprises a 2-leaf timber panelled door with a roll-moulded architrave and rectangular fanlight featuring a webbed glazing pattern. The basement has small circular windows flanking the stairs and cast-iron barred windows in the outer bays. Above are 2 ground floor windows flanking the door and 5 first floor windows centred over them. Small piended dormer windows sit at the outer edges of the roofline. A single storey outbuilding, converted to a garage, abuts the house to the right with its plain gable end facing south.

The east elevation shows the garage abutting the house to the left, with a partially obscured basement window visible to the right. The north (rear) elevation is near-symmetrical, featuring a central piended single storey porch with a square window with cast-iron bars above it. To the left is a small square window and sunk basement door, with an arrow slit window to the left outer bay. Two arrow slit windows stand to the right of the porch. Above the porch sits a central stair window set between the ground and first floors, and 4 first floor windows occupy the outer bays with narrower inner windows. A central cast-iron roof light crowns the north elevation. The west elevation has a ground floor window to the left and a blind window to the right.

Windows throughout are predominantly 12-pane timber sash and case, with 4-pane timber windows to the dormers. The roof is piended platform with grey slates. Rendered corniced wallhead stacks sit to the east and west, and an ashlar coped gablehead chimney stack serves the garage to the south.

The interior retains original mid-18th century fireplaces in the library and drawing room. The dining room is panelled in painted lime with gilt highlights to the panels and a look-a-like fireplace. Some original white marble tiles survive in the basement near the kitchen.

The former stables, dating to the 18th century, comprise a single storey, 5-bay rectangular structure, partly converted to a garage. The west (principal) elevation is rendered, while the north and south elevations are random rubble. This elevation features 3 stable doors to the right, a modern window and garage door to the left, and a bas-relief horse head between the central stable doors. The roof is pitched with grey slates and ashlar coped skews with scrolled skewputts. A plain gable faces north, and a 2-leaf timber boarded door stands to the right of the south gable. Two later window openings pierce the east elevation.

The estate is enclosed by random rubble boundary walls. The main west entrance gates are flanked by mid-19th century gatepiers of square plan with chamfered ashlar and pyramidal caps topped with later carved birds of prey finials. A single plain square plan and pyramidal capped gatepier marks the terminus of an inner rubble wall west of the house, and another similar gatepier stands east of the house in a wooded glade.

North of the house lies a square-plan walled garden divided into quarters by a central avenue running north to south. The south wall is low random rubble with central low square-plan gatepiers capped with pointed pyramids. The north, east and west walls are high coped random rubble, with a low arched alcove set into the northwest wall.

By the mid-19th century, the house was no longer occupied by the landowner. A new mansion house called Duloch House was built at the south end of the estate by John Cunningham, Lord of Session, in 1844 (now demolished). During the second half of the 19th century, Old Duloch served to accommodate estate employees. The later 19th century owner of Duloch estate, Bailie William Gibson, died and left the estate in trust, administered by the Gibson Trustees. The houses and grounds were leased for many years. Old Duloch fell into dereliction by the 1960s but was acquired and restored by Alastair Harper in 1969–70. According to the Dunfermline Press, the restoration included renewal of floors and rebuilding of chimneystacks while retaining the original stone quoins.