Borthwick Hall

Borthwick Hall

A 2-storey house with a dominant central 3-storey and attic bartizaned tower, designed by the architect John Henderson and dated 1852, with substantial additions and alterations in 1926. The building adopts the Scottish Baronial style and occupies a conspicuous position in the valley to the south-west of Heriot village.

The external walls are harled and whitewashed masonry with exposed ashlar margins and dressings. Key architectural features include a base course, rope-moulded string course rising over first-floor windows and around corbelling, a cill course, and corbel courses on the north-east wing and tower. Crowstepped gables and corbelled angle turrets with finialled candle-snuffer roofs are prominent throughout. The north-east corner features an angle-turret to the bartizaned tower.

The entrance elevation is asymmetrical, with a roughly central glazed entrance porch flanked on the right by a single-storey flat-roofed 2-bay wing with a turreted corner and on the left by a 2-storey, 1-bay gable with a bipartite window at ground floor and corbelled angle-turrets. A short low wall terminating in a square pillar projects from the south-east corner. Windows are hood-moulded throughout.

The garden (south) elevation displays an 8-bay asymmetrical arrangement with the central tower flanked on the east by an advanced window bay and on the west by two gabled wings stepped forward. A flat-roofed extension built between 2001 and 2003 projects further at an angle towards the south-west.

The western elevation contains a kitchen court partly enclosed by a wall to the south and flanked to the north by a crowstepped gabled wing (formerly the servants' hall). Modern single-storey additions partly infill this court.

The north elevation comprises 9 bays with crowstepped gabled dormers breaking the eaves at first-floor level, an advanced gabled wing to the west, an advanced gabled bay toward the east end corbelled out at first-floor level, and a single-storey wing at the east corner.

Windows are predominantly multi-paned, glazed in Edwardian timber sash and case windows with 6 panes in the upper half and plate glass below. Ashlar-coped chimney stacks with small cans are present, and the roof is Scottish slate with a zinc ridge.

The interior demonstrates Baronial style treatment with exposed wood finishes in the main rooms and stair. Six-panelled doors occur throughout. A tall central hallway features a trussed timber ceiling with corbelling, and the curve of the upper-level stair turret breaks into the hallway space. A tall arched opening leads to a stone stair with timber balusters and rail.

The library retains an original Jacobean-style compartmented ceiling. The drawing room and dining room were remodelled in the Neo-classical style circa 1926, the drawing room featuring a decorative plaster ceiling and wall panels with a timber-carved chimneypiece, and the dining room containing a timber-pilastered buffet niche, timber chimneypiece and dado.

The billiard room (now subdivided) on the first floor contains an armorial-tiled chimneypiece bearing the Macfie family crest. An octagonal room on the first floor, possibly originally a card room, retains a timber chimneypiece. Bedrooms predominantly retain original timber chimneypieces and decorative plaster cornices.

The house holds considerable architectural and historical significance. John Henderson (1804–1862), though better known as an early exponent of archaeologically accurate Gothic Revival architecture in Scotland and as a designer of significant buildings for the Episcopal Church, produced this as one of his few domestic works. The house was designed for Sir Charles Lawson, a seedsman and nurseryman after whom Cupressus Lawsoniana was named, and who served as Lord Provost of Edinburgh from 1862 to 1865. Lawson and Henderson had first become acquainted when Henderson designed the museum and library premises for the Highland and Agricultural Society (of which Lawson was an active member) at the corner of Victoria Street and George IV Bridge in Edinburgh.

The building has undergone several alterations. From 1873 until 1926 it was owned by David Macfie, whose family made various changes including the addition of the fireplace in the billiard room bearing the Macfie crest. Map evidence indicates that the timber porch may also have been added during this period. In 1926 the house was purchased by Edinburgh lawyer William Blair, who refitted the principal rooms. Subsequently the west wing was divided into several separate properties, and further additions were made during the later 20th century. Despite these modifications, the overall character of the building remains unchanged, and it continues to make an important contribution to the landscape.