East Lodge, Traquair House

East Lodge was constructed between 1880 and 1881 for Hon. Henry Constable Maxwell Stuart, the 16th Laird of Traquair. It is a two-story lodge of irregular shape, built in a Picturesque/Tudor Gothic style. The lodge is rectangular in plan with decorative barge-boarding on bracketed gables and a circular tower topped with a battlemented parapet built on a corbel course. The exterior is mainly harled (roughcast) and painted, with whinstone beneath, and features red sandstone ashlar dressings. A deep base course is present, incorporating sloped drip arrises, sill and moulded bands.

The southwest-facing elevation has a single-story, square entrance bay to the right, featuring a timber panelled door with a rectangular fanlight above, and a projecting cornice covering a flat roof. Behind this rises a round tower. The central area features an advanced, one-and-a-half-story gabled section with a three-sided bay window on the ground floor, which has a piended roof. The eaves overhang, displaying decorative wave barge-boarding and decorative timber bracing to the gable head, topped by a ball finial. A recessed lean-to is present to the left.

The southeast-facing elevation features a two-story circular tower with square-headed windows on the ground floor and arched-headed windows above, including a blind arrow slit. It has a corbel course and a heavily battlemented parapet. To the right is a gabled section with an arch-headed tripartite window on the ground floor and a similar bipartite window above, both with hood moulds; the eaves have decorative wave barge-boarding, decorative timber bracing to the gable head, and a ball finial.

The northwest and northeast elevations are simpler. The northwest elevation includes a single-story lean-to, partially concealing the ground floor and its three regularly spaced windows and a timber rear entrance door. The rest of the elevation is blank. The northeast elevation is plain.

Plate glass glazing is within timber sash and case windows, with arched upper sashes on the road (southeast) elevation and four-pane glazing in the timber sash and case window within the southwest bay window. The roof is pitched grey slate with lead ridging, flashing and valleys. Painted cast-iron rainwater goods are visible. Stepped octagonal ashlar stacks feature moulded neck copes and matching yellow cans.

The interior has been slightly altered with the addition of a single-story lean-to section to the rear, but most of the original timberwork remains, including the windows, panelled doors, and skirting boards.

The lodge is approached by a pair of tall, cylindrical ashlar gate piers, now harled and painted, with a red sandstone moulded base course and rounded caps. Plain painted wrought-iron gates with dog bars lead into the grounds, with a single gate alongside the entrance to the main house and a pair of similar gates for vehicular access. Harled boundary walls with stone copes extend northeast from the lodge and terminate in a squared pier with a low pyramidal cap, and southwest from the gate piers, both meeting higher random rubble estate walls with semi-circular coping.