Former Manse, Cockpen

Former Manse, Cockpen

This is a two-storey and attic former manse of T-plan, designed by Richard Crichton in 1816. The building comprises three bays with coursed, tooled pink sandstone walls and droved dressings. It features a base course, projecting cills, an eaves course, and long and short quoins. The roof is grey slate with a lead ridge, coped stone skews, and droved, coped gablehead stacks with circular cans. Cast iron rainwater goods are in place throughout.

The southeast (principal) elevation is symmetrical with an architraved doorway to the centre containing a panelled timber door, and windows to each flanking bay with regular fenestration to the first floor. The northeast elevation is also symmetrical and three-bay, featuring an advanced gabled bay to the left with a window in the centre of the ground floor. Windows occupy the ground and first floors of the right return, whilst the centre and right bays are recessed. The centre bay has a window to the ground floor, and the bay to the right has bipartite windows to both ground and first floors, with a gabled dormer serving the attic floor. The northwest elevation is asymmetrical and three-bay, with an advanced gabled bay to the left containing a single window set in the gablehead. A glazed timber door opens to the ground floor of the right return with a window to the first floor above. The centre bay has windows to ground and first floors, and a lean-to at the right bay contains a single ground floor window. The southwest elevation is asymmetrical, with a lean-to to the ground floor now obscured by a late twentieth-century conservatory addition; the remainder of this elevation is blank.

The building is lit by a variety of timber sash and case windows. The interior was not seen at the time of the 1998 survey.

Additions and alterations were carried out in 1875, possibly by Peddie and Kinnear, as mentioned in the Heritor's Records, though the extent of their work is not detailed. The firm also worked on Cockpen Parish Church a few years later. Further repairs and alterations were undertaken in 1911 by James McLachlan, following significant subsidence caused by mineral mining beneath the structure. Despite this damage, the former manse survives as a well-proportioned building largely in its original form.

The property includes a U-plan stable block to the northwest of the house, constructed of tooled rubble with droved dressings. Three large boarded timber doors occupy the centre, with bays advanced to the outer left and right. A barred window opening to the outer left is surmounted by a ledge and three flight holes, with a doorway to the right return. A broad two-leaf boarded timber door opens to the outer right with a window opening above, and a door provides access to the left return. The stable block has a piended grey slate roof with overhanging eaves, a lead ridge, and modern skylights.