Pittendreich, Melville Dykes Road, Lasswade

Pittendreich is a 2-storey house with basement and attic, designed by David Bryce in 1857, with later alterations and additions. It is a symmetrical, 3-bay Jacobean-style house built in stugged and snecked cream sandstone ashlar with polished ashlar dressings and droved, chamfered window surrounds. A single-storey sunken service wing extends to the south, with a rectangular-plan pavilion beyond. The house features a string course between basement and ground floors and crowstepped gables.

The south-east entrance elevation displays an advanced 3-light canted window at the centre with a long, rectangular-plan glazed porch behind. Balustraded steps lead to the ground floor entrance, with two basement windows in the right return. The bay to the right and left contain tripartite ground floor windows and bipartite first floor windows, with small attic windows to the gable heads. A square plaque carved with a bird sits above the canted window, with an eaves balustrade above. Wallhead stacks flank the gable.

The south-west garden elevation features a full-height canted bay to the right and a later 2-bay block set back to the left. A 5-light ground floor window to the right is corbelled to a bipartite first floor window, with an attic window to the crowstepped gable above. The sunken service wing to the south has 4 bays grouped 1-3, with part-glazed doors featuring letterbox fanlights and trefoil motifs to the piers between. A 2-storey pavilion to the outer left contains a horizontal light at ground floor and a high bipartite window above, with trefoil motif and narrow slit opening to the right return. A modern lean-to addition with boarded door stands to the left return.

The north-east elevation is irregular with 5 bays. A full-height advanced canted and corbelled window in the outer left bay contains bipartite and single windows at basement and ground floors, with a bipartite window at corbelled first floor level. Central bays contain evenly spaced windows, with a dormer window to the attic. A full-height modern tripartite window spans basement and ground floors in the outer right bay.

The north-west elevation is harled and comprises 4 bays grouped 2-2. The left group has a crowstepped gable with windows at each floor in the left bay and a tall replacement window spanning both floors in the right bay. The right group contains part-glazed doors with rectangular fanlights at basement level and windows at ground floor, with a dormer window to the attic above.

Windows throughout exhibit variety in glazing patterns, including 8-, 12- and 2-pane timber sash and case windows, and fixed tripartite and bipartite mullioned windows. The roof is pitched grey slate, with slate to additions. Ashlar coped wallhead and gablehead stacks are present, some dormer gablets carry carved ashlar initials "GSD". Cast iron rainwater goods include dated hoppers.

The interior was not examined in 1996, but is known to contain a drawing room with a library en suite along the south front, and a dining room with a thistle cornice to the north-east. In 1928, Lorimer & Matthew refurbished the interior for owner Douglas Strachan, who designed stained glass window panels for the library. He may have also papered the library and drawing room with Chinese prints, now removed, which were uncovered in the 1980s during conversion of the building from a school to a nursing home. Some prints were restored; others were stabilised, covered and remain in situ.

The house was built by David Bryce for Lord Deas, known as the "hanging judge". The square-plan ashlar gatepiers have ogee-arched recesses, cornices and shallow pyramidal caps, with sandstone rubble boundary walls featuring stugged curved cope. The gatepiers have been relocated further back from the road for safety reasons, with new walls subsequently built.

The property now operates as a nursing home.