The Kirna, Walkerburn

The Kirna is an asymmetrical two-storey villa with attic and partial basement, designed by F T Pilkington in 1867 for George Ballantyne. It is built in a highly individual Ruskinian-Gothic style, with an entrance tower at the south-east corner. The walls are of coursed, rock-faced whinstone rubble set off by contrasting patterned sandstone ashlar dressings, which incorporate roll and rope-mouldings, band courses, decorative ornament, and columned shafts with foliate capitals. Windows are square-headed, round-headed, or shouldered, all with drip cills. The roofline features feather-edge skew gables with stylised fleur-de-lis finials and swept moulded putts.

South-East (Entrance) Elevation

The entrance front is approached via a central flight of ashlar steps flanked by low canted ashlar wing walls that terminate in buttress piers with chamfered square caps bearing roundel motifs. The steps lead up to an entrance terrace and then to a polygonal entrance bay with an arcaded loggia — three sides open and the third blind — where hybrid leafy capitals on plain shafts support rope-moulded arches with sculpted lily keystones. The entrance itself has a tongue-and-grooved surround leading to a timber-panelled door with a shaped pediment and sidelights. There is chequered detail between the band courses. Each face of the first floor has a square-headed window with similar decorative treatment. At attic level, a turreted section rises from the wallhead of the outer bays, topped by a pair of pedimented and finalled dormers.

To the right of the entrance, a canted angle leads into the east elevation: at ground floor level there is a canted quadripartite window with foliated angle mullions, with a pedimented and heavily decorated wallhead dormer above, and a matching dormer to the left cant. The first floor of the right cant has a blind wall rising into a high blind gablehead with an elaborate chimney stack; a further blind cant extends to the right.

South Elevation

The south-east entrance tower sits in the right re-entrant angle. The centre of this elevation is occupied by a one-and-a-half and two-storey, two-bay gabled end: the ground floor left has a canted bay window, and to the right is a single segmental-headed window. At first floor level to the right is a gable-headed wallhead dormer containing arch-headed windows; to the left is a segmental-headed bipartite window with a pilastered mullion. The gablehead has a blind roundel with a cross detail. On the left return, a slightly projecting gabled ashlar surround encloses a glazed panel door at ground floor level — now accessed by a later set of timber open-tread steps — and a partially concealed basement window. The right return is blind. Recessed further to the left is a one-and-a-half-storey, two-bay billiard room extension of later date, with plain ground floor windows and pedimented wallhead dormers resting on a moulded cill course.

West Elevation

The original west elevation is largely obscured by a later extension to the main house on the left and the advanced billiard room on the right. The billiard room projects as a gabled end with a wide, sloping buttressed support at ground floor level containing a high tripartite window, and a plain window to the first floor left. On the left return, a single-storey flat-roofed outhouse has a squared vehicle opening to the west and a doorway to the north. A square first-floor outshoot, in the re-entrant angle, rests on a corbelled foot to the rear of the outhouse. Below it, canted bays lead to the main house: a door with a high plate-glass fanlight and a bipartite window to the left are accompanied by a pedimented dormer above. On the left return, a blind gabled end connects to a regularly fenestrated piended extension at ground floor level.

North (Rear) Elevation

To the left of the rear elevation is a slightly advanced one-and-a-half-storey harled wing with a central entrance door, a bipartite window to the right, and a single window to the left. At first floor level there is a central piended window flanked by a narrow window of regular size, and a larger wallhead dormer to the right. The right portion of the rear elevation is formed by the returns of the west elevation.

East Elevation

The east elevation adjoins the south-east entrance tower and the canted angle to the left. To the right is a single ground-floor window, with a bipartite pedimented dormer with feather-edged skews above.

Windows and Roofline

The windows throughout are multi-paned timber sash-and-case: the lower sashes have small panes while the upper sashes are plate glass or two-pane. To the rear of the property, eight- and twelve-pane glazing is used in timber sash-and-case windows. The roof is pitched and finished in grey slate over most of the building, with a polygonal pitched roof over the entrance tower, and a mixture of pitched and piended wallhead dormers elsewhere. Eaves are bracketed. Rainwater goods on the principal elevations are of painted cast iron, supported by carved floriated stone brackets; plainer rainwater goods are used elsewhere. Some original ashlar chimney stacks survive with grouped flues; later ashlar stacks have rounded angles and paired cans.

Interior

The principal staircase is a scale-and-platt timber stair with twisted newels topped by elaborate finials — the main finials are carved as grotesque fanged animals holding shields bearing the Ballantyne crest — and an arcaded gallery above. Doors are panelled and set in architraved surrounds. The drawing room has a plaster ceiling incorporating George Ballantyne's initials and a moulded cornice. The hall is timber-panelled and arcaded, with opaque leaded glass panels, and now forms a wall to the present dining room. The stairwell is lit by a gable-ended pitched skylight. The billiard room is a high, plain space.

Historical and Architectural Context

The village of Walkerburn grew up around the textile mills of Tweedvale and, later, Tweedholm, both established by Henry Ballantyne, who founded the village, built its earliest workers' housing, and laid out its present form. By his death in 1865, the village had a population of just under 800. The business and its workforce were passed to his five sons, until 1870 when three of them — George, James, and Henry Jr — left to run a mill in Innerleithen. Three Ballantyne family houses originally stood grouped together on this side of the road within one large subdivided plot: Stoneyhill (John's house), Sunnybrae (David's house), and Tweedvale (Henry's former home), all listed separately. Pilkington was working extensively in the village at this time for the Ballantyne family, and The Kirna was designed at the same time as Stoneyhill, the lodges, and the stables.

The Kirna is unusual within this group in that it stands apart from the other Ballantyne houses, sited to the west of the village within terraced grounds, though it shares characteristic features with the other buildings. Entrance is gained through the idiosyncratic tower; the staircase is of heavy oak with grotesque finials to the newel posts; and the interior plasterwork and fittings are plainer and more classical in character. As at Stoneyhill, the external ornamentation is confined to the public elevations, with the rear and west elevations left comparatively plain. The later billiard room extension, much plainer in character, was added to the west gable. A glasshouse and boundary wall still survive, as does the lodge, which is believed to have originated as a separate stable block rather than a conventional entrance lodge, given its positioning.

The Kirna is stylistically similar to a Pilkington house of comparable date in Edinburgh — Craigend Park, designed for William Christie, a tailor believed to have sourced his materials from the Ballantynes' mill. That house is now known as Kingston House and has been converted into apartments.

The building is listed as a fine example of a Pilkington mansion retaining original external features and a notable interior, and is highly regarded both as one of a group of Pilkington buildings within Walkerburn and for its significance as a Ballantyne family property.

Historical records of the site include W. Edgar's map of 1741, which shows a house on a higher part of the site; M. Armstrong's 1775 map of the County of Peebles, which shows an adjacent cottage; J. Ainslie's 1821 survey, which names the site; the first edition Ordnance Survey map of around 1858, which shows the house and stables in place; and a reference in the Royal Scottish Academy Exhibition of 1867, published in The Builder on 9 March 1867, which describes the project as a mansion for John Ballantyne Esq, Walkerburn. The second edition Ordnance Survey map of around 1896 records the property as "Kirnie House". Further references appear in J. Buchan's History of Peebleshire (1925) and C. A. Strang's Borders and Berwick (1994).