Chiefswood House

Chiefswood House is a villa dating to 1820, with later additions from the mid-19th century and some fabric from the late 18th century at the rear. The house comprises a two-story, four-bay gabled Cottage Ornée style building to the south, featuring a Doric porch and a variety of window styles. An 18th century cottage and a single-story outbuilding adjoin the north corner, with a double-gabled addition in the re-entrant angle forming a stepped composition to the west (the main front).

The exterior is constructed from roughly-coursed, squared pink rubble with cream sandstone ashlar dressings. The fenestration is quite irregular, largely using long and short margins, with some raised ashlar margins to the 1820 section. Two flat-roofed dormers break the eaves of the south elevation.

The west (principal) elevation displays the 1820 cottage to the right, featuring a timber-panelled front door with a lead-roofed timber Doric porch; a small pointed window with shutters above; a slightly advanced and hoodmoulded bipartite window to the right; and a shuttered window above. Two regularly fenestrated gables project forward towards the centre and left, while a single-story outbuilding is recessed to the extreme left.

The south (side) elevation features a canted window to the right, a hoodmoulded window to the left, and dormers to the attic.

The east (garden) elevation presents the 1820 cottage on the left, with an advanced bipartite bay window at ground level and a small window to the right. An arched window with decorative glazing sits above. To the right is an irregularly fenestrated narrow gable of the original cottage, alongside an L-shaped piend-roofed ancillary range with doors and windows. A double gable is positioned behind.

The north (rear) elevation exhibits a U-plan arrangement of irregularly fenestrated buildings around a service courtyard. A piend-roofed ancillary building projects to the left, and a stone garage extends to the right.

The windows are predominantly timber sash and case, with lying-pane glazing in the later gabled wing and small-pane glazing in the 1820 cottage. Timber casements are found on the first floor of the 1820 cottage. The building has coped stacks with yellow clay cans, deep bracketed eaves, and plain bargeboards on the mid-19th century wing. The roof is covered in graded grey slate.

The interior includes a half-glazed timber-panelled lobby door, a stone staircase through an archway in the 1820 wing, and a timber staircase in the later wing. Features include marble fireplaces, an alcove in the entrance hall, built-in bookshelves in the rear drawing room of the 1820 wing, reeded doorframes in the 1820 wing, and plain Georgian cornicing.

A walled garden lies to the east of the house, roughly rectangular in shape. The walls are constructed from random rubble, with a round-arched gateway to the east. A low coped wall with decorative cast-iron railings runs along the south, and simple ashlar gatepiers mark the southeast corner of the house.

A single arch bridge is situated to the southeast of the house, constructed from random rubble with an ashlar arch and a low coped parapet with plain 20th century railings.

A well, known as Monks Well, is near the burn to the southeast of the house, featuring a cusped window head from Melrose Abbey as its wellhead.