Linden Park Gatepiers and Gates

Linden Park Gatepiers and Gates

Built in 1885, this entrance gateway to the former Linden Park Estate comprises a pair of stone gatepiers with two decorative iron gatepiers, pairs of wide gates and pedestrian gates between them. The structures are set back from the A698 road northeast of Hawick. They were likely designed by John Guthrie, the architect of the house and estate ancillaries.

The paired stone gatepiers are rounded pillars built in smooth ashlar, supported on squared base plinths. The pillars have corner angles at the base and finely tooled corbels to the squared top sections, all cut from a single piece of stone. Their large overhanging pyramidal caps feature a tooled cornice and round ball finials, which support small decorative iron details that are remnants of former electric light fittings.

The pair of squared hollow iron gatepiers are constructed from metal strip bars with rivets and coronet-style caps with finials. Tall hand-crafted reed stalks with leaves and flowerhead details are set within the pillars. Both the central gates and the smaller side gates are made of circular vertical bars linked by flat horizontal bars, with double the number of spacing bars with ball ends at the lower level and round arched details encasing thistle motifs at the top.

The low coursed rubble stone quadrant walls were built at the same time as the gates and gatepiers and are attached to the gate piers with a linking cope detail. These quadrant walls are simple in design and have been altered by the removal of the former railings which ran their full length.

Linden Park was designed in 1885 by Hawick-based architect John Guthrie (1833–1903) for mill owner Walter Laing (1820–1895), senior partner in the hosiery firm Dicksons and Laing Ltd of Wilton Mills, Hawick. The company was the main employer in the town in the 1870s with 600 workers. The estate included the main house, stable block, gate lodge and gardens and cost £20,000 to build—a considerable expense at the time. The estate also employed four servants and a coachman.

Linden Park Estate first appeared on the 2nd edition Ordnance Survey map (surveyed 1897, published 1899), which shows a large house with the gate lodge, a walled garden and a stable courtyard building. The presence of entrance gates is indicated on this map by a line with curved quadrants to the west of the gate lodge. A late 19th-century photograph shows the house overlooking extensive and elaborate Japanese-inspired gardens, which included a walled garden with glasshouses, a large lawn and woodland walks. The Trow Burn, which ran through the estate, was dammed to create an ornamental pond with oriental-style boat house, bridges and mini pagodas. The burn also powered a turbine generator to supply the house with electricity, making it one of the first private houses in the area to have electric power installed. The small turbine house, built in rubble with a conical roof, remains in situ on low ground 100 metres southeast of the gates, with internal gearing reportedly running around 2016.

The gates were built in 1885 at the same time as the house, gate lodge and associated quadrant walls. They were a bespoke design by Guthrie as part of the overall estate design and were made by workers employed at Laing's Wilton Mills. When built, the stone gate posts featured electric lighting powered by the turbine. The glass lantern spheres shown in an early 20th-century photograph have since been removed, although some of the decorative metal elements still survive on top of the piers. The full set of railings around the quadrant walls shown in the photograph have been removed.

Local architect J.P. Alison carried out additions to Linden Park in January 1896, with drawings showing the addition as a billiard room and library wing with a veranda on the west of the house. Linden Park was untenanted from 1908 until 1920, when it was sold to Mr and Mrs Harry Smith, mill owners from Leeds. In May 1921 a deliberate fire burnt the house to a shell, and a drawing by J.P. Alison dated August that year recorded the plan form at the time of the fire. In 1942 the estate was bought by the McGivern family. The quadrant wall railings are likely to have been removed during the Second World War as part of the war effort iron requisition. Information provided by the proposer suggests that the gates were saved when estate trees were offered in their place.

In 1955 the McGivern family built a bungalow on the site of the former house, and housing plots were sold at different periods in the later 20th century. There are currently ten dwellings on the site of the former estate, including the gate lodge. The former stable block, now known as Linden Park, is accessed via a separate entrance to the north. Most of the decorative former gardens have been lost.

Copies of Guthrie's original plans were held by local blacksmiths Telfer of Mansfield and used as reference during repairs to the ironwork at various points between 1960 and 2000. The stone quadrant walls and gatepiers and the square-section iron gatepiers and two pairs of gates survive in their original late 19th-century setting with the gate lodge located to the east.