Mavisbank House

Mavisbank House is one of Scotland's most important country houses, designed by Sir John Clerk of Penicuik and William Adam and built between 1723 and 1727, with significant alterations made around 1840. It is a Classical country house or villa of considerable architectural ambition, built on a previously undeveloped site.

The main body of the house — the corps de logis — is a square-plan block of two storeys over a basement, with five bays across the principal elevation. Flanking this central block are curved quadrant screen walls that sweep forward and connect symmetrically to rectangular-plan single-storey-over-basement pavilions on each side. The principal elevation and quadrant walls are faced in cream sandstone ashlar; the side, rear, and pavilion walls are rubble construction, originally harled, with polished ashlar dressings and margins throughout. A base course and eaves course run across the building, topped by a modillioned cornice at eaves level. Above this sits a balustrade with regularly spaced corniced and panelled dies, originally surmounted by urns, which were missing as of 1996.

The centre three bays and the corner angles of the principal and first floors are framed by horizontally channelled strip pilasters. The outer left and right pilaster pedestals carry Latin inscriptions. On the side and rear elevations of the main block, margined window jambs with cill and lintel courses form a grid pattern across the principal floors. The screen walls and pavilions also have margined windows.

PRINCIPAL (NORTH-EAST) ELEVATION

The entrance front features a splayed ashlar forestair rising to a corniced entrance porch that projects at principal floor level in the centre bay. The doorpiece has an architrave and is surmounted by an armorial panel flanked by foliate scrolls. The first-floor window in the centre bay has lugged architraves, and the flanking bays are regularly fenestrated. Carved stone swags with masks appear over the ground-floor windows. The first-floor windows carry alternating triangular and segmental arched pediments. A pediment with a modillioned cornice rises over the centre three bays, with bold foliate carving in the tympanum and an architraved oculus at its centre.

NORTH-WEST ELEVATION

A four-bay elevation. The basement and principal floor openings were infilled and subsequently re-exposed following demolition of later additions. The first floor retains regular fenestration.

SOUTH-EAST ELEVATION

A mirrored image of the north-west elevation.

REAR (SOUTH-WEST) ELEVATION

A symmetrical five-bay elevation. In the centre bay, an ashlar forestair — formerly balustraded — rises to a projecting tetrastyle portico. This portico consists of a stone balustraded parapet with corniced piers at the base of Tuscan columns, with corresponding pilasters supporting an entablature with a mutuled cornice and blocking course. A garden door is centred behind the portico at principal floor level, with flanking windows; the window to the right is blind, with a trompe l'oeil painted urn.

QUADRANT SCREEN WALLS

The two-storey, two-bay quadrant screen walls flank the principal elevation, curving forward to pilastered corners before sweeping downward to single-bay sections adjoining the pavilions. A single-storey rubble-vaulted passage survives to the rear of the south wall. The basement has margined square windows; the principal floor windows are round-arched with keystones and linked by a band course at impost level. The wallhead is corniced and surmounted by a blind balustraded parapet.

NORTH PAVILION

The pavilion has symmetrical two-bay-by-one-bay principal elevations, with a string course at principal floor level, a margin and cornice at eaves, and horizontally channelled pilasters clasping the corners. The single-bay north-east elevation features a basket-arched cart arch at basement level, with a Venetian window centred above — now brick-infilled, with a modern opening inserted to the left. A decorative wallhead stack rises from a corniced and panelled shaft above an open-pedimented base with flanking foliate scrolls and a blind oculus at the centre. The south-east courtyard elevation is regularly fenestrated. The south-west elevation has a matching but less elaborate wallhead stack. The north-west rear elevation has a later inserted door and window to the left of the basement, with regular fenestration to the right bay and at principal floor level. The basement openings are linked by a band course.

SOUTH PAVILION

A mirrored image of the north pavilion, with matching principal and south-west elevations. The south-east elevation is three storeys. A tall rendered brick chimney obscures the pilaster to the outer right. The sub-basement of the south-east elevation has segmental-arched openings with fluted keystones, presiding over a walled service courtyard enclosed by a high rubble wall. A monopitch service wing, possibly dating from around 1840, stands to the right of this courtyard.

WINDOWS, ROOFS, AND STACKS

Most openings in the main house are now brick-infilled. A single twelve-pane oak sash and case window with a radial upper sash survives in the north quadrant; some twelve-pane windows and shutters remain in the pavilions. The roofs have been removed. A single panelled, pilastered, and corniced polished ashlar multi-flue stack rises through the centre of the main block.

RETAINING WALLS, TERRACES, STEPS, AND GATEPIERS

Retaining walls extend to the north and south at the rear elevation of the main block, and eastward from the service courtyard, where a doorway with steps sits immediately to the east. Garden walks on earth terraces lead to a walled garden to the south and a structure referred to as a 'fort' to the west. Sandstone steps serve the south walk, and circular-section gatepiers — their caps now missing — stand opposite the north-west gateway to the walled garden.

HISTORY AND SIGNIFICANCE

Sir John Clerk's father had originally planned a house on this site; a drawing of 1698 shows a plain square block with coupled chimneystacks on a tall piended roof. This earlier scheme became the basis for the present house, enriched and recast in the Palladian manner. The mason contractor was John Baxter Senior, and the stone carver was William Sylverstyne.

Around 1840, the house was remodelled with a symmetrical arrangement of large, well-designed additions flanking the rear elevation — possibly the work of Thomas Hamilton — providing a drawing room and ballroom. These additions were demolished in 1954. It appears that the parterre within the principal courtyard was excavated at this time, and the cills of the basement windows were lowered along with the forestair. Further extensions were added to the fronts of the pavilions in the 1880s, but these were likewise demolished in 1954.

Until recent consolidation work, the corps de logis retained many timber sash and case windows: twelve-pane to the principal floors, and sixteen-pane and four-pane patterns to the basement, though the majority of the multi-pane windows are likely to date from the 1840 remodelling. A photograph of around 1956 shows a blind first-floor window appearing to display the original twenty-four-pane arrangement with thicker glazing bars.

Following the fire of 1973, the house lost some urns from the principal balustrade and pediment, as well as the ornate nineteenth-century cast-iron balustrade to the principal forestair. It also lost its roofs, which are essential to understanding the French and Dutch influences on the design. The roofs were of grey slate and comprised a distinctive domical piended platform roof to the main block, piended and bell-cast roofs to the pavilions, and a monopitch to the service wing.

Mavisbank is listed as a group with the Doocot, Gazebo, Walled Gardens, Ice House, Dairy, Game Larder, and East Lodge on Kevock Road, Lasswade.