Kingsmeadows House, Kingsmeadows Road, Peebles

Kingsmeadows House is a classical country house built circa 1795 for John Hay, with significant additions and extensions dating from 1811 and 1855. The building is two storeys with a basement and is constructed in droved pale ashlar with polished dressings, except for the rear block and some returns which are whinstone rubble (harling removed in 2000) with tabbed pale sandstone margins. The principal features include a projecting porch and a canted central bay with pyramidal roof. The building is finished with an eaves course and cornice, and includes a skew gabled extension with overhanging moulded putts.

The principal (west) elevation comprises a seven-bay block from 1811. At the centre, seven stone steps flanked by ball-finalled walls lead to a projecting flat-roofed porch with cornice and blocking course. A two-leaf timber panelled door in a moulded architrave is flanked by paired Doric pilasters, with two windows in stepped returns lighting the vestibule. The first floor features a semi-octagonal central bay with pyramidal roof and windows to each canted side. To the left and right of the centre are three regularly placed bays with basement windows (half-lights), ground and first floor levels, cill bands, corniced windows in moulded surrounds to the ground floor, and an eaves cornice.

The south elevation is complex, reflecting the building's development. To the left (the 1811 block): a late 19th-century conservatory was removed circa 1960 and replaced with disabled access and a modern glazed door at ground level; a tripartite window with cill course and painted blind sidelights to the first floor; and a bartizan or circular tourelle with a finalled, fish-scale slated conical roof corbelled out at the first floor re-entrant angle. The centre of the elevation conceals the original 1795 house and features paired windows to the left and right of the basement, a pair of irregular windows to the ground floor left with a corbelled course above, a tripartite window to the right, two bipartite windows to the first floor, and three regularly placed pedimented stone dormers to the attic. The right side (the 1855 extension) shows a projecting gabled end with narrow basement windows and larger flank windows, a central window to the ground floor, a bipartite window to the first floor, and a window to the basement of the left return with a blind to the rest of that elevation.

The east (rear) elevation is arranged around a U-plan former service court with two storeys, basement and attic. The projecting left arm has a lean-to concealing the basement elevation with an entrance door to its right return. The main building has irregular fenestration. The right return of this projection features a window and door at basement level and an irregular pair of windows to the ground floor, with a blind gable above. The recessed centre has altered fenestration and a projecting first floor extension in the right re-entrant angle, supported on south-east angle piloti, with a pair of timber gabled attic dormers to the main roofline. The projecting right arm features a pedimented gable-end with long and short quoins, an altered door to the central ground floor accessed by a ramp, and a high window to the first floor left.

The north elevation is divided into sections. To the left is a rendered two-bay 1855 extension with a corniced canted bay window to basement and ground floor, a single window to the basement flanked by a window on the main elevation, and a tripartite window to the first floor bay with single lights in flanking angles and two pedimented dormerheads breaking the eaves. The centre of the elevation (the 1795 house) features a later two-storey corniced projecting squared bay with paired windows to the basement, a tripartite window to the ground floor, three windows in moulded surrounds to the first floor of the main house, and two pedimented dormers to the attic. To the right is the L-plan rear of the 1811 main block with tripartite windows with painted blind sidelights to each storey of the outer ashlar bay with polished band courses, a blind whinstone elevation to the left return leading to a full-height single-bay extension in the re-entrant angle, and a later lean-to porch at the basement level with a full-height single-bay window link to the central block at first floor. A corbelled bartizan adjoins the left return at first floor level.

The windows throughout are eight-pane sash and case in timber to the principal elevation (four-pane to basement), and plate glass sash and case windows to other elevations. The roof is covered in piended and graded grey slate with fish-scale detail to the conical bartizans; the original house has a mansard roof. Lead ridging, flashing and valleys are used throughout, with painted cast-iron rainwater goods featuring some decorative hoppers. Ashlar stacks with projecting neck copes and plain cans predominate, whilst some semi-harled stacks to the rear have projecting quoins.

The interior features an oval entrance hall with a coved ceiling and hexagonal stone flags. A curved cantilevered staircase has cast-iron balusters and a rosewood handrail. The suite of rooms along the north side features ornate plasterwork and marble chimneypieces, including one in the former Conference Room with a Greek key pattern frieze and incorporating marble statues (from another source) of a lion in the frieze and classical figures in flanking niches. Late 19th-century Rococo brass door furniture is evident throughout.

A terrace wall divides the north side of the forecourt from the sloped riverside site, comprising a base course of coursed whinstone rubble facing the river with a formal ashlar wall surmounting it, supported on pilasters carrying ball finials.

To the east of the house, in trees, are the ruins of an octagonal gazebo (shown on the 1856 Ordnance Survey map), partly complete to wallhead, constructed in squared and snecked whinstone rubble with pale sandstone margins and tabbed windows (now blind), the first floor windows being round-headed.

The boundary treatment comprises a late 19th-century entrance with a recessed rectangular plan featuring a reset two-leaf wrought-iron gate with ornate spearhead bars interspersed with plain dogbars and a central thistle finial visible when the gate is closed. A pair of square ashlar gatepiers with chamfered angles and pyramidal caps adjoins much later coursed rubble right-angle walls. A further pair of squared ashlar piers terminates a coped rubble boundary wall to the outer elevations, adjoining a later wall to the rear elevations.