Westfield Park, Bonnyrigg Road, Dalkeith

Westfield Park, Bonnyrigg Road, Dalkeith

This is a 2-storey symmetrical former Poorhouse built in 1849. The main building is 7 bays wide (arranged 1-5-1) and constructed in stugged squared and coursed masonry with ashlar dressings. A band course runs between the ground and first floors on all elevations, and the building has base and eaves courses with raised cills and square windows at first-floor level.

The principal elevation faces Bonnyrigg Road to the west. It features a painted doorpiece at the centre with a consoled and bracketed cornice and blocking course. The door itself is 2-leaf panelled with a rectangular fanlight containing a circular glazing pattern. The outer bays are piended and advanced, with regularly disposed fenestration across the elevation. A tripartite window survives at ground level in the outer right bay, though the tripartite window in the outer left bay has had its mullions removed and been replaced with modern glazing.

The south elevation contains 8 bays. A canted window with cornice and blocking course sits at ground level in the third bay from the left, with a modern door to its right. A modern fenestrated canted projection has been added at ground level in the bay to the right of centre, and a modern door has been inserted in the penultimate bay to the right. The fenestration is regularly disposed except for a blank bay at ground level at the outer left. A wall runs south from the adjoined left side.

The east elevation, facing Dalhousie Road, also has 8 bays. A piended projection with broad chamfered corners was added in 1897 and occupies the centre 2 bays; a modern door has been inserted to the left on the 2-bay east election. The single bay return elevations have bipartite windows at ground level, and the windows on the chamfered angles sit at first-floor level. A modern timber and plastic lean-to porch has been added in the re-entrant angle to the right. A broad door occupies the third bay from the right, with a blocked window above it. The remaining bays have regular fenestration.

The north elevation spans 8 bays (arranged 5-3). A modern fenestrated canted projection has been added at ground level in the third bay from the left. The fenestration is regularly disposed, though the window in the bay to the left of centre is out-of-line to the right. A modern flat-roofed block at ground level occupies 3 bays to the right of centre and is linked to a modern piend-roofed single-storey concrete and pebble-dashed range to the north.

Glazing patterns vary considerably across the building: largely 12-pane sash and case windows at ground level to the west, small-pane casement windows at first floor to the west, south and north, largely 4-pane sash and case windows to the east, and modern top-hopper glazing in remaining windows. The roof is covered in grey slates with shallow-pitch piended sections, deep bracketed eaves, and deep bracketed eaves. Two rendered and lined centre stacks sit on the west pitch, whilst a shouldered ashlar wallhead stack stands at the centre of the east projection. A large canted slate-hung ventilator shaft rises to the right of the east pitch. Original cast-iron downpipes remain.

A squared and coursed rubble single-storey outbuilding stands to the southwest, with an eaves course, coped skews and bracketed skewputts to its east gable. The north elevation has a blocked door with flanking windows. Additional modern single-storey ancillary buildings include a concrete and pebble-dashed range to the northeast, a timber garden house to the north, and a building to the southeast.

The boundary treatment includes a curved saddleback coped squared and coursed rubble wall running south and adjoined to the left of the south elevation, with a garden door. A curved wall adjoins the right side of the north elevation of the southwest outbuilding, and a retaining wall adjoins the left of the west elevation. Rubble boundary walls with rubble coping face Dalhousie Road, whilst semicircular coping runs along the south boundary. A later low saddleback coped rubble wall with gatepiers, wrought and cast-iron gates and railings fronts Bonnyrigg Road.