Blythebank, Station Road, Duns

Blythebank is a house dating from around 1800, with a later single-storey service wing. It is a two-storey building with a raised basement and three bays, designed in a pedimented classical style. The main elevation is constructed of rock-faced ashlar with polished dressings, while the secondary elevations are of dressed rubble. The house has a base course, cill courses to the principal and first floors, a dentil cornice, and a blocking course.

The west elevation is symmetrical, with a rock-faced basement. Long and short rusticated quoins define the corners, and the fenestration is regular. The central bay is slightly advanced and pedimented, with nine steps leading to a doorway flanked by cast-iron handrails. The door surround features Tuscan columns, a cornice, and a round-headed opening containing a deep-set, flush-panelled door and a radiating fanlight above a moulded lintel. Flanking windows on the principal floor have moulded architraves, flat frieze panels, and cornices. The south elevation has two bays with regular fenestration, although one window is blind, and the basement diminishes in height. The north elevation has two bays with windows to the principal floor and a blind window to the right above. The east elevation has three bays, with the central bay projecting over the basement. It incorporates a window to a later, rendered second storey and a return window at ground level. A service wing is attached at ground level on the left, with a window at the first floor and windows to the right, with one of these blind at ground level.

The windows are timber sash and case, with 12 panes to the main levels and 16 panes to the basement. The roof is piended and covered in grey slates, with corniced ashlar stacks, largely rebuilt on the south side. The interior, last inspected in 1993, includes an entrance hall with decorative fan plasterwork and a fanlit screen to the stair hall.

The service wing’s south elevation has four bays. The first bay from the left features a canted window, moulded eaves, and a piended roof. A porch in antis with a glazed door and window is located in the third bay, with a raised wallhead and gable above containing a window. The fourth bay is gabled and advanced, with two small windows at ground level, a large window in the gablehead, and an ashlar finial and weathervane. The north elevation has five bays, with a window linking it to the central bay of the main block. Three symmetrical bays extend to the west, featuring a door with a three-pane letterbox fanlight at the centre. A gabled bay with a raised wallhead has a tall window to the left, while another gabled bay projects on higher ground with a boarded door and window. A projecting wing attached to the principal block on the right contains a three-bay, single-storey and attic former stable block with a boarded door and two-leaf garage doors. A deep-set glazed door and window are in a re-entrant angle, with a window and rooflight above. The east elevation of the stable features a blank upper level, a door with a gabled dormerhead, and a pair of rooflights.

A low boundary wall of dressed rubble with square coping steps up to square ashlar gatepiers with stop-chamfered arrises, a base course, and flat pyramidal caps. Wrought-iron gates complete the boundaries.