Kippen House Including Gatepiers And Quadrant Walls

Kippen House Including Gatepiers And Quadrant Walls

Kippen House is a large multi-date Scots Baronial shooting lodge of circa 1840, substantially reworked and dated 1910, with extensions added in the 1870s. The building incorporates work by architect Andrew Heiton Junior, including a machicolated and crenelated five-stage tower dated 1873. The house is well-detailed with single, single-storey and attic, and two-storey sections, featuring exceptional interiors. It was converted to a hotel in the later 20th century and subsequently became a care home. A small U-plan courtyard is formed by single and low two-storey service quarters at the rear.

The building is constructed from squared and coursed bull-faced rubble with contrasting ashlar dressings. A raised base course forms the ground floor cill course and partial eaves course. The original building features crowstepped gables and finialled stone dormerheads. Later ranges incorporate some trefoil-headed windows in gothic-arched frames creating a traceried effect. Throughout, there are corbels, stone transoms and mullions, raked cills and chamfered arrises.

The elevations are asymmetrical. The entrance elevation to the north-east features a monumental square-plan tower incorporating a porch that leads to a broad two-leaf panelled timber door in a moulded doorpiece. The third-stage windowhead bears the initials 'AT MG' and the date '1873', surmounted by decorative relief carving. The fifth stage has conical-capped viewing turrets at the angles, while a larger circular stair tower forms a caphouse with a spired cupola at the north-west angle.

The long garden elevation to the south-east displays the original four-bay house at the left with a crowstepped gable now bearing a framed panel with the initials 'JW EAW' and dated 1910. A corbelled turret stands at the outer left angle, and a projecting stone porch with a panelled timber door in a pedimented doorpiece sits at the right, below a coat of arms flanked by crenelated angle rounds. The lower two-storey, three-bay centre range has a blocked pointed arch at its centre, possibly a former pend entrance to the small rear courtyard, and displays early family crests. Three dominant bays at the right incorporate a circular conical-roofed tower and gabled bays with decorative window detail.

Windows throughout the house feature some leaded and coloured glass, with three-pane upper sashes, four-pane and plate glass glazing patterns, all in timber sash and case windows. The roof is covered in grey slates with a fishscale pattern to the south-east tower. Coped and shouldered ashlar stacks are present throughout. The original house retains a thackstane and ashlar-coped skew at the east. Stone gable and dormer-head finials are visible, while other sections feature deeply overhanging eaves with decorative and plain bargeboarding and decorative cast iron finials.

Interior

The house retains a fine decorative scheme throughout its principal rooms and halls. Good plasterwork and painted ceilings of panelled and strapwork design are complemented by Tudor gothic and classical joinery work, marble and timber fireplaces, panelled dadoes, cast iron radiators and some original light fittings.

The entrance hall features a tiled floor, timber-panelled walls below Tynecastle wallcovering, a stone fireplace with tiled cheeks and hearth, and a painted timber ceiling. The stairhall contains a marble fireplace and elaborate plasterwork ceiling, with a grand timber arcade opening onto a cantilevered timber staircase. A coloured glass bipartite stair window displays a thistle and rose design.

The classically-detailed 1910 ballroom features heavily decorated plasterwork frieze, cornice and ceiling, with architraved doorways containing swag detail. An inglenook fireplace with Ionic columns frames an inset marble fireplace, flanked by pictorial panels of coloured glass windows depicting 'Morning' and 'Evening'. Further coloured leaded glazing appears in the top lights of the south-west facing windows.

The single-storey dining room is rectangular in plan with a ridge lantern to the ribbed ceiling and a black marble fireplace.

Gatepiers And Quadrant Walls

A fine pair of vehicular gatepiers flank the drive, each with outer pedestrian gatepiers and flanked by ashlar-coped bull-faced quadrant walls. The large gatepiers, which are slightly raked and of square section, feature a deep base, plain plinth and elaborately carved cap with inset floreate capitalled columns and heraldic device. The outer, smaller piers display trefoil design at their apex.