Priorsford House, Tweed Avenue, Peebles

Priorsford House is a late 19th-century villa situated on Tweed Avenue, Peebles, accompanied by closely associated cottages, known as the Lodge, and gatepiers.

The main house is a two-story, two-bay gabled villa constructed from squared and snecked bull-faced red sandstone with cream sandstone dressings. The features include tabbed margins, overhanging bracketed eaves with exposed rafters and bargeboards. The south elevation has first-floor windows that break the eaves with gabled dormerheads, a broad canted bay on the left, and bipartite windows at ground level to the front, with single windows to the sides. A central window is located at the first floor, and a shield is present in the gablehead. The roof is pavilion-shaped with swept eaves, though the finial is mostly missing. The right bay features windows on both floors. The east elevation is gabled, with a canted window at ground level to the left, featuring a piended roof, a platform, and brattishing. To the immediate right is another window, and at the corner is an advanced gabled porch with a panelled door and plate glass fanlight. A projecting, small timber sun room with a swept piended roof and brattishing faces south. The north elevation incorporates a projecting single-story service range with a half-piended roof, and a broad central gable with two windows breaking into the gablehead at the first floor. The west elevation is broad and gabled, featuring a window at ground level to the left, a timber lean-to conservatory to the right, a window in the gablehead, and an apex stack. The windows throughout the house are timber sash and case with plate glass, although some modern replacements are present. The roof is covered with purple-grey slates, and coped dressed bull-faced stacks with octagonal cans are visible. The interior of the house was not inspected in 1994.

The Lodge comprises a pair of single-story and attic, three-bay cottages at the property’s entrance. They are constructed from whinstone with red sandstone dressings and chamfered arrises. The cottages feature overhanging eaves with exposed rafters. The west (entrance) elevation presents a symmetrical three-bay cottage to the left, with a central door and a two-pane fanlight, a gabled open timber porch with cross-bracing and a finial, and flanking bipartite windows. A pair of broad gabled timber dormers, each topped with a finial, are also present. Adjoining this is a three-bay cottage with a smaller, projecting gabled porch, which was later filled in, placed centrally. A single window is to the left and a bipartite window to the right. A modern box dormer is on the left side and a central cast-iron rooflight is visible. The south elevation has a gable end with a blind oculus in the gablehead, cross-bracing, a modern brick apex stack, and a modern dry-dash, flat-roofed extension at ground level. It adjoins a brick garden wall to the east. The east elevation shows an irregular rear, with an addition to the south cottage and later box dormers and Velux windows. A blank gable is visible on the north elevation, along with an apex stack, and it adjoins boundary walls. The windows in the cottages are timber sash and case with multi-pane glazing. The roof is covered with purple-grey slates and features coped and dressed rounded apex stacks, terracotta cans, and ridge tiles.

The boundary walls are constructed of coped rubble, and red sandstone gatepiers mark the entrance on Tweed Avenue. These gatepiers have bases with chamfered arrises, a fluted frieze, and ball finials.