Walled Garden With Bee Boles, Carriston

Walled Garden With Bee Boles, Carriston

A substantial early 19th-century house, extended in the late 19th century (possibly by Peddie and Kinnear), comprising a two-storey building with part basement and a three-stage tower in Italianate style. The construction employs squared, coursed and dressed sandstone rubble over a random rubble basement, with the original house built in a variety of yellow and grey sandstone. Later work incorporates narrow dressed ashlar and squared and snecked rubble. Dressed and polished quoins, base courses, dividing courses and eaves courses are throughout. Windows are predominantly round-headed with voussoirs, chamfered arrises and stone mullions.

The south elevation, which contains the original entrance, is symmetrically arranged. A flight of eight steps oversails the basement to a centre bay containing a tall door (now converted to a window) set within a Doric columned and canopied doorcase. Flanking bays and regular bays to the basement and first floor contain matching fenestration.

The three-stage tower is positioned at the centre of the east elevation. A flight of six steps with flanking ball-finialled dwarf walls leads to a panelled timber door with semicircular fanlight, set in a round-headed, keystoned and corniced doorway with moulded brackets and spandrels. To the right are two narrow windows on the return and a narrow light in a recess beyond. The second stage is divided by a course and features a round-headed window with a similar window on the right return and a narrow truncated light beyond the roof line. The third stage contains a cill course and round-headed tripartite windows to the east and south, with two narrow windows to the north. Above rises a mutuled cornice and a stone balustraded parapet featuring keystoned occuli with semicircular-headed square dies.

The west elevation displays a bay to the left of centre with a canted quadripartite window with cornice and blocking course at ground level, and a bipartite window above with a dormerhead breaking the eaves. To the right of centre is a recessed bay from the original building, containing two windows to both floors with a further basement window to the left.

The north elevation shows a tall window off centre left at ground level with a window above. A lower projecting bay to the left contains a ground-floor window and a return to the right with a panelled timber door and plate glass fanlight; a small adjacent window to the left and a further window above complete this elevation.

The east elevation comprises four bays with a lower bay to the outer right. A projecting bay to the left from the original building has a window at ground level to the right and a broad shouldered stack above, with windows to both floors on the return to the right. The bay to the left of centre contains a basement door with an adjacent window to the left, a ground-floor window, and a round-headed, margined stair window above. A large bipartite window to the right of centre is matched by a bipartite window above breaking into a dormerhead. The recessed outer right bay has steps leading up to a timber door with a small adjacent window to the right.

Glazing throughout includes 4, 6, 10 and plate glass panes in timber sash-and-case windows. The stair window displays a three-pane glazing pattern with coloured glass margins. The roof is covered with grey slates. Rubble and coped ashlar stacks with cans (some polygonal) and deeply overhanging eaves complete the exterior.

The interior of the first stage of the tower contains roundels with painted plasterwork depictions of putti. The staircase features decorative timber balusters, decorative cornicing and marble fireplaces throughout. The lounge and hall have parquet floors, and panelled shutters are fitted to windows.

A walled garden of rectangular plan lies to the south-east, constructed of coped random rubble. Its north perimeter is buttressed and includes a row of four square bee boles positioned to the south.

Boundary walls of coped rubble define the property. A saddleback coped ashlar boundary wall with decorative cast iron gates and hooped railings encloses the eastern boundary, complemented by cast iron railings to the east elevation steps.