Walled Garden, Spottiswoode

Walled Garden, Spottiswoode

This is a complex of agricultural and domestic buildings centring on a groom's house dating from circa 1777, with later additions and alterations documented in 1796 and 1798. The site includes a single-storey stable block with coach houses, kennels, outbuildings, and various structures within the grounds of the former house, including a bear's den, well, doocot, and ice house.

The principal building is arranged in a U-plan. The groom's house is a 2-storey rendered structure with red sandstone dressings, while the flanking wings are rubble and whinstone construction. The rear elevation of the groom's house is harled, as is part of the rear of each coach house. The kennels are constructed in red sandstone. All buildings feature slate roofs.

The south elevation of the groom's house and coach house presents a symmetrical composition. The groom's house centre comprises three bays with a 2-leaf later timber door flanked by a console-bracketed, dentilled pedimented doorpiece, a 4-pane rectangular fanlight (formerly radial rectangular), and a Venetian window at first floor above. Windows occupy the flanking bays. The coach houses, one on either side, are single storey with Doric colonnades (1 pilaster each). Each bay has a window adjacent to the groom's house; the outer left bay originally had slatted double doors, though these were altered in the 1930s to single windows. A door with red sandstone plain margin and a date stone carved 1796 marks the outer left coach house.

The wings are gabled structures with kneelers and bracketed skewputts. They feature pairs of blinded circular openings with Gibbsian surrounds at ground level. The left wing retains intricate Gothick glazing painted in one opening, while the right wing's openings are timber-boarded. Above these are pointed-arch stop-chamfered openings, also boarded, with timber horizontal hoisting posts.

The kennels, added in 1798, form a symmetrical 3-bay block in red sandstone. The centre bay is advanced and pedimented. Each bay has a flush panelled door with blinded holes near ground and rectangular fanlights above. An ovoid plaque in the pediment displays the Spottiswoode crest (an eagle) and the date 1798. A paved area in front is edged with whinstone and a coped boundary wall with arrow-headed cast-iron railings.

The courtyard's west elevation is a 7-bay symmetrical block. A circular niche with Gibbsian surround occupies the centre, with windows flanking it. Pedimented doorpieces with boarded doors and 4-pane rectangular fanlights above mark the penultimate bays. Windows fill the outer bays.

The rear (north) elevation shows a 2-storey addition to the groom's house centre with a stair-window at first floor. A single-storey addition with a door extends to the right. The east coach house has a later boarded window at its outer left. The west coach house features a boarded door at approximately its centre, with a window to the right and a single-storey monopitch addition to a penultimate bay.

Throughout, windows are 12-pane timber sash and case. The groom's house roof is slate with coped skews and ornamental scrolled skewputts, terracotta ridge tiles, and brick gable-head stacks. Coach house and stable block roofs are slate with single-pane and 2-pane skylights at regular intervals, with exposed raft beams, some ogeed to the rear. A vent near the ridge serves the rear roof of the east block. The kennels roof is now collapsed.

The principal ground-floor room of the groom's house retains shutters.

Outbuildings parallel to the house, to the rear and west, are single storey in whinstone with ashlar dressings. The eastern section features archway openings and two doorways to the outer right, a boarded door to the west, and pigsties (now ruinous) to the outer left. At right angles to the east at the rear of the house is a second outbuilding range with a boarded door to the left and an archway opening to the right. Both are slate-roofed with exposed rafters.

Within the grounds of the former house are several ancillary structures. A bear's den is a small-scale stone structure of uprights and lintel. A stone-lined shallow well to the east-south-east of the stables is accessed by steps and is now largely ruinous. A circular-plan doocot, also ruinous, stands in the grounds. An ice house of rectangular plan, constructed of rubble with a pantiled roof (now partially falling in), is located to the east of the walled garden.

The walled garden itself lies to the south-east of the groom's house. It is bounded by rubble walls with rounded coping and contains a canted glasshouse and a sandstone circular-section sun-dial stand (now without its dial). A rustic shelter of unstripped pine, possibly dating from the 20th century, subdivides the garden and is surrounded by a grove of holly. A raised area to the north contains a glazed glasshouse and sun-dial, while a timber rustic shelter stands to the east.

The boundary features a cast-iron pointed-arched gateway, originally leading to the grounds surrounding the demolished house. A mounting block to the south-east of the courtyard, with ceramic tiles to the west added in the 1940s, completes the formal arrangement.