Glenormiston House

Glenormiston House is a classical farmhouse built around 1809 for William Hunter, situated approximately four and a half miles from Peebles. It is a two-storey building with an attic storey, comprising a three-bay rectangular-plan main block with symmetrical principal elevation, and multi-bayed rectangular-plan wings to either flank that were originally one and a half storeys (now altered). The building is harled with dressed ashlar margins. Chimney stacks have harled sides. Window surrounds are dressed ashlar with slightly raised sills, lintels and margins.

The south-facing principal elevation displays classical symmetry. The central entrance comprises a timber panelled door within a plain stone surround, topped by a two-pane narrow rectangular fanlight. A single window to the first floor aligns with the entrance. The outer bays on each floor contain tripartite windows with stone surrounds and mullions. Two splayed timber and slate dormers with pairs of gables sit in the attic, aligned with the outer bays. To the left, the west wing has a partially glazed timber entrance door and a much later tripartite window, with a flat-roofed attic dormer of paired gables above the door. To the right, the east wing projects forward with a single bay containing a bipartite window and a piended bipartite timber and slated dormer aligned with the ground floor window. Further right, a single-storey section extends with three later bays and very high wallhead, featuring central French doors with a narrow two-pane fanlight and large plate glass windows with top hoppers to the flanks. A rubble garden wall adjoins to the right, incorporating an arched entrance and later wrought-iron gate.

The east elevation is asymmetrical, with the extended wing gable advancing and concealing the ground floor of the main house; a garden wall adjoins to the left. The upper floor and gablehead of the main house are blind. The north rear elevation shows the east wing as a single storey and attic, three-bay section with a flat-roofed squared outhouse adjoining the north-east angle. A single storey is present, with the third bay heightened to form a two-storey extension to the main farmhouse. The main farmhouse has triple windows to the ground floor left with a single window to the first floor, a slightly advanced central bay with door to the ground floor and window above, and windows to each floor of the right-hand bay. The rear of the west wing was not visible at the time of survey in 2002. The west elevation displays a wing gable advancing from and concealing the ground floor of the main house, with a first-floor window to the right of the main house and a blind gablehead above.

Principal elevation windows are timber sash and case with 12 and 15-pane glazing, flanked by 4 and 5-pane side lights. Attic dormer windows have 4-pane glazing in timber sash and case, with 2-pane sash and case windows. The remainder of elevations feature various replacement glazing including plate glass windows with opening top hoppers. The flat-roofed attic dormer has six lying panes. Rear wings contain 12-pane sash and case windows with horned upper sashes, and some two-pane cast-iron Carron lights. Later roof lights have been introduced.

The roof is pitched grey slate with lead ridging, flashing and valleys. The main house has a pair of piended slated splayed attic dormers and the east wing has a similar dormer; the west wing has a flat-roofed slated dormer. Painted cast-iron rainwater goods are present. The main house has gablehead stacks with coursed ashlar ends and harled gablehead and inner returns, ashlar neck copes and three to four octagonal cans. The west wing has a small harled gablehead stack with a single can, and the east wing extension has a small harled square stack to its rear. The house has a skew gabled roof with plain putts.

The interior has been altered and extended to form modern residential accommodation.

Glenormiston House should not be confused with the original Glenormiston mansion, which was the principal building on the estate until its demolition in 1956. This smaller farmhouse, positioned further up the hill at the rear of the site, has since been adapted as the principal dwelling and adopted the mansion's name.

The estate was formerly known as Wormiston and Ormiston, and belonged to the seventh Earl of Traquair. His trustees sold it for £8,400 to John Scott, writer to the Signet, who dramatically improved the land through extended cultivation and planting of larch belts. Scott's heirs sold the property in 1805 to William Hunter, a farmer from Liberton Grange near Edinburgh, for £9,910. Hunter renamed the estate Glenormiston and continued to improve fields, raise plantations and build this farmsteading alongside the now-demolished mansion. Following Hunter's death, the estate was sold for £24,000 to William Steuart, who spent a further £10,000 on improvements including draining additional land, adding pavilion wings to the mansion and laying out gardens. William Chambers purchased the estate in 1849 for £25,500 and created a new entrance with its own lodge. Chambers was a publisher and Lord Provost of Edinburgh. He improved the land further and altered the farm steading, then known as Glenormiston Grange, harling and whitewashing it. It became regarded as one of the best-adapted modern husbandry farms in the county. To complement it, Chambers built a number of labourers' cottages. By 1864, plantations on the estate had matured and were considered valuable—a marked contrast to when the area had begun as open hillside known as the "ten pound land of Ormiston." The tripartite windows in the principal elevation are not original, having replaced earlier bay windows and an entrance porch. The house is listed as a good example of an early nineteenth-century farmhouse and one of the largest remaining estate buildings following the demolition of the mansion.