Garvald House

Garvald House

Garvald House is a large country house built around 1830 for John Allan Woddrop, with extensive alterations and additions made around 1860. The main house is a two-storey building with basement, five bays wide, and double-pile in plan, presenting a Classical façade. It features an Ionic portico with four columns, giant corner pilasters, and consoled windows with framed architraves. The principal elevation is constructed in polished pale sandstone ashlar with a cill course to ground level, moulded cornice and blocking course. Two-storey additions to the northwest are built in pale red and pink sandstone with similar corner pilasters and square clustered chimneys.

The south or principal elevation rises above a stone balustrade at ground level, with steps leading to a slightly advanced central bay containing the four-columned Ionic portico with channelled entablature and moulded cornice. Flanking bays have consoled windows with framed architraves. A slightly recessed two-storey bay to the right contains tripartite windows. To the left, a single-storey screen wall (formerly a pavilion) has a tripartite window and returns to a raised platform with balustraded wall, which originally supported a timber glazed conservatory and greenhouse built around 1860, now demolished.

The windows throughout retain predominantly twelve-pane glazing patterns in timber sash and case frames, with single glazing predominating to the rear additions. The roofs are piended with grey slate. The principal block has ridge stacks with square clay cans, while the northwest section has square clustered stacks.

The interior contains a massive mid-nineteenth-century hall with a vaulted ceiling. A large oak staircase features alternating twisted and plain balusters with moulded timber consoles, and was designed to accommodate an organ (no longer present) on the west wall. Round-arched openings to the first floor have moulded surrounds, pilasters and keystones. Principal ground floor rooms retain decorative cornicing, and there is a good Scottish Renaissance marble chimneypiece in the dining room, with marble chimneypieces elsewhere.

Originally a three-bay two-storey and basement house with single-storey piended pavilions, the earlier form of Garvald House can still be read despite later additions and alterations to the side and rear. The east pavilion was raised a storey, and the large timber conservatory was inserted behind the façade of the west pavilion.

A former stable, built around 1860 for William Allan Woddrop, stands to the west on higher ground. This is a two-storey rectangular-plan building in red sandstone with a central segmental-arched pend. A WAW monogram is displayed over the segmental arch. Single-storey ranges extend to the rear, forming an enclosed central courtyard. Predominantly twelve-pane glazing is used in timber sash and case windows. The roof is grey slate with end stacks featuring tall octagonal clay cans. Cast-iron rainwater goods are installed throughout.

A former coach house, located separately, is single-storey and rectangular in plan with a gabled roof. It is built in squared and snecked red sandstone rubble with dressed margins. Two large round-arched openings with timber doors are set to the west elevation, flanking a centrally placed flat-lintel opening now blocked with timber and glazed partition. Pale brick roundels decorate the gable ends. A lower pitch roof addition to the south gable contains a slitted window to the west elevation and timber door to the south. The roof is grey slate with cast-iron rainwater goods.

A very large rectangular-plan walled garden constructed in red sandstone rubble is located on high ground to the southeast of the house. A baluster sundial dated 1832 stands at the centre, decorated with a cornice and scrolled gnomon.

A lodge, built around 1840, is a single-storey three-bay square-plan building with a half-mansard piended roof, central stack and scrolled console cornices. The walls are pale sandstone ashlar. An advanced gabled porch with heraldic pediment faces the principal elevation, with bipartite windows to the flanking bays. Timber sash and case windows are used throughout. The roof is grey slate with a central coped stack and clay cans. Cast-iron rainwater goods are fitted.

The estate buildings are distributed pragmatically across the rolling topography of the site, reflecting nineteenth-century estate planning principles. A large man-made pond to the west of the house was historically used for curling, and a small curling hut survives on its south bank.

Since 1944, Garvald House has operated as a residential care facility for adults with learning disabilities based on the principles of Rudolf Steiner. Most associated estate buildings have been converted or extended to support this function, serving either amenity or staff accommodation purposes.