No 2, Traquair Cottages, Traquair

No. 2, Traquair Cottages, Traquair

This is an early 19th-century terrace of three vernacular cottages, single storey with attic accommodation. The building forms part of what was originally a more extensive symmetrical row of four single-storey cottages (arranged as 2-3-3-2 bays) with a separate single-bay outhouse.

The principal north-west elevation presents the most complex arrangement. To the far left stands a single-storey piend-roofed outhouse with a door on its left side. The first cottage, a two-bay structure with raised attic, has a pitched corrugated-iron roof and an open timber rustic porch to its right. The porch features rough logs supporting its corners and sides, with weather-board infill below half-height and remnants of diagonal timber infill above; a later entrance door sits within. A later bipartite window appears to the left. Above, a flush stone-fronted dormer breaks the eaves. Two further three-bay cottages adjoin to the right, both single storey with attic and featuring similar open timber rustic porches with rough log construction and weather-board infill (the left cottage's infill has been removed). Both retain later entrance doors within and windows with plain margins to the flanks. Their upper levels display a pair of set-back gabled dormers aligned with ground-floor windows; those on the right cottage retain acorn finials to their gableheads. At the far right, a two-bay single-storey cottage (now part of the third cottage) has an entrance door to the left with painted margins and a matching window to the right.

The north-east elevation shows a blind gabled end, originally single storey but raised to provide greater attic space, rising into a gablehead stack. A single-storey piend-roofed outhouse with a blind end wall partially conceals the ground floor.

The south-east (rear) elevation is single storey with regular fenestration in places obscured by later extensions, and features a large attic dormer to the central cottage.

The south-west elevation displays a single-storey gable-end rising to a rectangular gablehead stack.

Most windows are four-pane timber sash and case type; the dormers of the second cottage contain timber casement windows with four-pane fixed glazing. The roof is pitched purple slate with lead ridging, flashings and valleys (graded slates to the first and third cottages). The pitched set-back dormers to the central cottages are timber-framed with slated cheeks and timber gableheads; the first cottage has a later stone-fronted near flat-topped dormer with lead cheeks. Painted cast-iron rainwater goods serve throughout.

Stacks are harled and varied in form: a tall rectangular gablehead stack with plain stone cope and three plain cans rises above the north-east gable; a taller square harled gablehead stack with a single can is shared with a lower cottage; a pair of lower harled and painted rectangular stacks with plain stone copes and paired cans stand at the roofline of the lower cottages, ending with a similar stack to the south-west gable.

The original construction is largely concealed beneath harling and paint, save for the outhouse, which is built of coursed and random rubble. Window dressings throughout are of painted sandstone ashlar with projecting cills and margins. All roof pitches are skewless.

The interior was not inspected as of 2002.