De Quincey Cottage, 6 Polton Bank, Polton

De Quincey Cottage at 6 Polton Bank, Polton, is an early 19th-century house of two storeys with later alterations and additions. The building is constructed of grey ashlar sandstone on its front elevation facing northeast, with sandstone rubble used on the other sides. It features raised, droved margins and cills throughout, polished ashlar doorpieces to the front and sides, and chamfered doorpieces to the side and rear elevations. A base course runs across the building, with a band course marking the division between ground and first floors on the addition. Eaves course and strip quoins complete the detailing.

The original cottage is a symmetrical three-bay rectangular-plan structure with a later single-storey lean-to addition to the west angle and further additions to the southwest rear wall. The northeast entrance elevation displays the principal cottage front flanked by a two-storey three-bay block to the right and a two-bay single-storey lean-to to the left. The centrepiece features an architraved, consoled and canopied doorpiece with a deep set timber panelled door fitted with a letterbox fanlight, with a window above at first-floor level. Windows occupy the bays flanking this central entrance at each floor. The two-storey block to the right has a part-glazed door with letterbox fanlight and associated first-floor window in one bay, and blinded windows with non-aligned first-floor fenestration in another. The lean-to addition has a timber panelled door with letterbox fanlight and an adjacent window.

The northwest elevation contains a part-glazed door at ground level in a central bay, with flanking windows at both floors. The southwest rear elevation is lengthy, comprising seven bays arranged as one, five, and one grouping across two storeys. It includes bipartite windows at ground and first-floor levels, three separate bays with paired windows, and two consoled and canopied doorpieces with part-glazed doors. A blank gablehead bay occupies the outer left, while the outer right contains segmental-arch double boarded garage doors, possibly originally for stables, set in a recessed bay.

Windows throughout are twelve-pane timber sash and case windows on the principal and side elevations, with fifteen-pane versions on the rear elevation. The roof is grey slate with a piended form and overhanging eaves to the northwest elevation, with slate on the additions. Diagonally set ashlar coped stacks rise from the southeast and northwest of the original cottage, and cast-iron rainwater goods are fitted throughout.

The boundary treatment comprises low sandstone rubble walls with ridged ashlar cope and arrow-headed railings fronting the property. High sandstone rubble garden walls with square ashlar cope extend southwest parallel to the rear wall and away from the house. Later tapered square-plan sandstone ashlar gatepiers with base course and square cap support replacement wrought-iron gates.

From 1840 until his death in 1859, the house was the residence of Thomas de Quincey and his family, at which time it was known as Man's Bush Cottage. Historical records show it appearing on the first edition Ordnance Survey map of 1854 as Mavisbank Cottage and on the 1894 map as De Quincey Villa.