Walled Garden, Bonjedward House

Walled Garden, Bonjedward House

This walled garden forms part of a later 18th-century estate with early 19th-century extensions. The garden itself comprises coped rubble walls approximately 2.5 metres high. Originally rectangular in plan, it was extended with canted side walls during the mid-19th century. The garden is sited on a south-facing slope to the south-west of the house.

Within the garden stands a square piend-roofed apple store and greenhouse positioned on the north-west wall.

The main house is a symmetrical 2-storey and attic villa of 3 bays with simple classical styling. It is constructed of sandstone rubble (with harl removed) and features polished cream ashlar dressings. A band course above the basement on the ground floor falls away to the rear. The building is detailed with moulded eaves, long and short quoins, and slightly taller ground floor windows.

The entrance front faces west, with a centre bay slightly advanced and marked by a blocking course and slender quoin strips. The doorpiece is pilastered and corniced in tripartite form, containing a panelled door with a 4-pane rectangular fanlight and 4-pane sidelights. Above sits a tripartite window with a slate-hung box-dormer at the centre. Flanking bays contain windows to each floor. A 3-bay wing projects to the outer left, single-storey on a raised basement with flat roof and harled finish; its left window is notably smaller.

The south elevation presents a 2-storey and attic composition of 3 bays on a raised basement, with windows to all floors of all bays and a central dormer matching that of the entrance front.

The east elevation is similarly 2-storey and attic with 3 bays on a raised basement. Its central bay is distinctively canted with quoin strips to the leading edges, containing a single window to each face and a blocking course. Windows serve all floors of all bays, with a central dormer above. To the outer right extends a 2-storey 3-bay wing with irregular fenestration: at ground level, a large bipartite window to the left, a single window at the centre, and a pair of narrow windows to the right; the first floor has a single window to each bay.

The north elevation follows the pattern of the south side but includes a wallhead stack at the centre. A projecting wing covers the ground and basement levels of the two right bays, fitted with a door and window at basement level and a window above. A much later double garage occupies the ground floor to the right.

Throughout the building, windows are 12-pane timber sash and case design, with 9-pane examples to the basement and 8-pane to the sides of the canted bay. The roof is piend and platform form, finished in grey slates with coped ashlar stacks topped by octagonal cans.

A mid-19th-century service wing extends to the north, detailed in the same manner as the main house but featuring a solid parapet and sill.

Internally, an entrance lobby opens into a central stair hall, which is lit by a drum cupola. The principal rooms retain delicate neo-classical plasterwork. The dining room features a Greek key frieze and a pilastered sideboard recess in its end wall, now converted to a kitchen. The basement preserves largely intact 19th-century kitchen and service rooms.

The house and estate were acquired by the Lothian family as a dower house around 1840, when the service wing was added. The property forms a group with surviving stables to the south-west and an entrance lodge on the A68 (listed separately). A small tile-hung bungalow, built in the 1970s, stands on the lawn to the east of the house. The interior displays marked similarities to Glenburn Hall. The New Statistical Account of 1834 describes Bonjedward as a "modern mansion house", though evidence suggests an earlier building existed on or near the site from 1671.