Woodside House

Woodside House is a multi-phase baronial mansion, substantially dating from 1759 and circa 1895, but incorporating part of a tower house originally built in 1551 and enlarged in 1645. In 1759 the turrets were removed from the tower, three additional bays were added, and the whole was brought under a single roof. A large additional block was added to the rear in 1848. Around 1895, the architect Charles S S Johnston of Edinburgh raised the tower and carried out further alterations, reinstating the baronial character. The building is a two-storey, attic and basement, seven-bay mansion set on sloping ground, with a symmetrical façade featuring a classical doorpiece and a three-storey-and-attic tower to the south-east. Characteristic details include crowstepped gables, pedimented dormerheads, and corbelled angle turrets. The walls are harled sandstone rubble, left exposed to the rear, with raised angle and window margins and a moulded eaves cornice to the two-storey section of the south-east elevation.

SOUTH-EAST (PRINCIPAL) ELEVATION

The central entrance has timber panelled outer doors with bosses, set within a porch with a Gibbsian surround at the head of a splayed flying stair. The stair is flanked by a stone balustrade terminating in ball-capped piers. A stone and cast-iron balustrade in a plain, geometric pattern runs over the retaining wall. Windows flank the entrance, with two windows to each outer bay. The first-floor windows are arranged in a 2-3-2 pattern. A small panel inscribed '1551 HR JH 1613' is set between the storeys to the left of the door. The tower's third floor has three windows, and the attic has a segmentally-pedimented dormer and two windows in a raised, crowstepped wallhead gable, with a corbelled angle turret to the left with a conical roof. Above the mid-18th-century bays are three pedimented dormers — the central one segmentally-pedimented — inscribed respectively 'JE JS 1771', 'WR UM' with arms, and 'RWC-P EH 1866'. A round-arched tablet supported by an entablature, carved '1674 WR JD', is set into the retaining wall return to the front right of the house.

NORTH-WEST (REAR) ELEVATION

A central gabled bay has a window to each floor plus a further small window to the first floor. Flanking bays are set back with single windows to each floor, those to the first floor having wallhead gables. A further bay is set back to the outer left. A two-storey entrance bay occupies a re-entrant angle, with a timber panelled door and a letterbox fanlight. A round-arched stair window lights the first-floor return, and a cheese press stands against the return wall.

NORTH-EAST ELEVATION

A single window to the ground floor right. Plaques at wallhead level on the gable read 'G 1759 R' and 'A 1759 P'.

SOUTH-WEST ELEVATION

Two gables: the right-hand gable is four storeys tall with angle turrets at the top, single windows to the second and third floors, and two windows to the ground floor. A raised ashlar platform projects at ground level, being the remains of a former conservatory. The left-hand gable has a canted five-light bay window at elevated ground level, two windows to the first floor, and a central plaque above inscribed 'WCP AC WP 1848' with a coat of arms.

GLAZING AND ROOF

Windows are predominantly timber sash and case with 12-pane glazing; those from the 1890s have six-pane upper sashes. Roofs are grey slate. Chimney stacks are corniced ashlar with octagonal clay cans.

INTERIOR

A good interior scheme survives with 17th, 18th, and 19th-century features throughout, including deep timber-panelled window embrasures with working shutters, moulded cornices, and panelled doors. The hall has a Roman Doric columned screen, a stone chimneypiece, and a scale-and-platt stair with a good cast-iron balustrade in an anthemion pattern and a mahogany handrail. The library (1759) retains two mural landscape paintings: one overmantel in a fixed frame, the other, larger painting opposite in a painted illusionist frame. There is a grey-veined carved marble chimneypiece, and a key-blocked arched niche — formerly a buffet niche, indicating the room's original use as a dining room — with rococo plasterwork. One door in this room is now blocked. The drawing room (1848) has a scrolled cornice and ceiling rose, along with an 18th-century-style copy chimneypiece in timber with a lugged surround, scrolls, and a shell below the mantelpiece. The dining room (1848) has a large rococo revival chimneypiece in yellow-veined marble with a square-ish rococo plasterwork frame above. The room to the front left has a replacement chimneypiece and two key-blocked, round-arched timber-panelled window embrasures to the south-west.

BOUNDARY WALLS AND GATEPIERS

A prominent grey sandstone rubble boundary wall with fireclay coping runs the length of the southern boundary. Square-section ashlar gatepiers, dating from 1848 and recently repositioned, have inverted fan motifs and corniced, centrally raised caps. These stand adjacent to Woodside South Lodge, which is separately listed. Modern gates and railings occupy a low rebuilt section. A carved stone inscribed '1551 HR JH 1613', in a columned surround, has been reset on the drive (2003).

HISTORICAL CONTEXT

Woodside was the seat of the Ralstoun family from 1551 to 1771. Originating from the parish of Paisley, the Ralstouns were an ancient family with connections to Paisley Abbey from the 13th century. Hew Ralstoun built the original tower house when he acquired the lands in 1551. The carved stones on the dormerheads, probably dating from 1890 and set into the walls, record the marriages of the Ralstouns and subsequent owners the Cochran-Patricks. Hew Ralstoun married Janet Hamilton of Torrance and died in 1613. William Ralston married Ursula Muir of Glanderstoun, then Jean Dunlop of Dunlop in 1674. In 1735, Gavin Ralstoun was born and married Annabella Pollock in 1758. In 1759 he "made an addition to the old tower of Woodside, by erecting a square building at the east end, removing the old turrets, and giving a new roof to the whole, so that it has now the appearance of a very plain building" (Paterson, p136). After financial difficulties, Ralstoun sold the estate in 1771 to Dame Jean Stirling and her husband James Erskine of Alva, and subsequently succeeded to his father-in-law's estate of Artherlie in Neilston. In 1833 the estate was sold to William Patrick of Roughwood, grandson of Jean Ralstoun, aunt of the last laird. In 1841 William Patrick married Agnes Cochran of Ladyland, and the family thereafter took the name Cochran-Patrick. In 1866 Robert William Cochran-Patrick married Eleanora Hunter of Hunter; he died in 1897. The Patricks were important and well-connected landowners in the parish, owning through various family connections the estates of Waterside, Trearne, Ladyland, Hessilhead, Drumbuie, Roughwood, Grangehill, and Woodside. The adjacent Woodside Farm, Woodside South Lodge, and East Woodside Lodge, all separately listed, were built around 1860 by Robert William Cochran-Patrick shortly after he inherited the estate; his initials RWCP appear above the entrance to the stables.

SIGNIFICANCE

Architecturally, Woodside is successful in its unification of the various periods of construction. Johnston's baronial scheme, reinstating a tower, recalls the building's early origins and complements the 1848 crowstepped additions to the rear. The harled frontages further consolidate the overall appearance. A photograph dating from circa 1885 shows the house prior to Johnston's intervention, at which point the classical symmetry of the 1759 scheme is clearly evident. The fireclay-coped boundary wall gives character to the roadside; the copes may have been produced at the Mossneuk Tile Works, which were located to the south-west of the grounds until the mid to late 19th century.

The interior displays an array of period features — including some modern alterations — of particular interest for their variety. The painted scheme surviving in the 1759 dining room is very much in the manner of the Norie family of decorators from Edinburgh, though it is not considered to be from the Norie workshop itself, but most likely by a rival firm working in the west of Scotland. These paintings are nonetheless important survivals of a decorative tradition that was later superseded by changing tastes. The scheme, typical of the period, now consists of two large landscape scenes, but was originally intended to extend throughout the room. Overdoors, painted panelling, and possibly further landscape scenes remain hidden beneath successive layers of wallpaper and paint.

The property is located to the north-west of the parish, set in wooded grounds. Woodside appears on Timothy Pont's map of 1654; it is marked as 'Ralstoun' on Andrew Armstrong's map of 1775 and as Woodside on John Ainslie's map of 1821, and on the first edition Ordnance Survey map of 1858.