Cardrona House

Cardrona House

William Burn designed this house in 1840 and it was built in 1841. It is a two-storey, multi-bayed house of near square plan in the manorial style with Scottish Jacobean details, constructed from pale broached sandstone ashlar with base, band and eaves courses. A similarly styled single-storey service wing is asymmetrically positioned to the rear.

The north or entrance elevation features a projecting entrance tower on the left with a rounded ground floor containing a central entrance doorway with hood mould and roll-moulded arrises, finished with a 2-leaf timber door. The corbelling rises into a squared first floor with a single window, above which is set a date stone inscribed 1841, before the tower culminates in a crow-stepped gable. To the left return is a ground floor window with a wallhead dormer having a moulded pediment at first floor level, similar to the first floor window on the right return. To the ground floor right is a tripartite window and a projecting canted bay window with tripartite front window and narrow lights to the canted sides, topped with a ball-finialled parapet. The upper storey has three regularly placed wallhead dormers with moulded pediments. The service wing adjoins and projects to the right.

The east or river elevation shows a projecting canted bay window on the left with similar fenestration and ball-finialled parapet, and two regularly placed wallhead dormers with moulded pediments to the upper storey. To the right is a gabled end with a projecting two-storey canted bay window containing single windows to all lights and a ball-finialled parapet. The entrance tower recesses to the far right.

The south or garden elevation displays the main house to the right with a two-storey, three-bay elevation featuring a tripartite window to the ground floor centre flanked by single windows, and three regularly placed wallhead dormers with moulded pediments to the first floor. To the right a gabled end has a projecting two-storey squared bay window with tripartite windows to each floor and an architraved ball-finialled parapet. The recessed service wing adjoins to the left.

The west elevation and service wing form a regularly fenestrated two-storey section with gabled ends, linked by a recessed single bay to the main house and lowering into a single-storey elevation to the west. All windows and doors follow the main house treatment. This wing formerly contained kitchen, larders, pantry and washroom.

An armorial panel is inset into the west gable from an earlier house, inscribed with the initials WW (Walter Williamson) and AH (Alison Hay) and dated 1719. Below is an inset stone with the initials IW (James Williamson) dated 1686.

The windows throughout are 8 and 12-pane glazing in timber sash and case frames, with 4-pane lights of similar style and materials forming the sidelights of tripartite windows. The pitched slate roof features stone ridging and crow-stepped gables with kneeler putts. Painted cast-iron rainwater goods include gutters inset into the moulded eaves course. Tall coursed ashlar roofline stacks stand on plinthed bases with projecting ashlar neck copes and paired plain cans; gablehead stacks of similar design serve the office and service wing.

The interior retains an original circular entrance vestibule with decorative foliate cornicing. The drawing room has a similar cornice. Cast-iron balusters run up the squared staircase and a cupola survives to the servant's stair. Most chimneypieces have been replaced, but an original liver-coloured Louis style marble surround remains. The rest of the house was modernised in the later twentieth century with lowered ceilings and new partition walls.