Game Keeper's Cottage, Pheasantry Wood, Manderston House

Game Keeper's Cottage, Pheasantry Wood, Manderston House

This is a single-storey cottage with attic, designed by John Kinross in 1895 as a Scottish 17th-century style building. It comprises the main cottage, a service court with screen walls, and a dovecot, all constructed in rake-jointed sandstone with ashlar dressings. Roll-moulded surrounds frame the doors and windows, and the attic floor is partly jettied on a corbel course beneath a roll-moulded eaves course.

The south-east elevation is three bays with a tall, lop-sided gable slightly advanced to the right. The gable's left corner is chamfered at ground level with a small window above, corbelled and then swept to square at attic. The attic gablehead contains a window with moulded cill and cornice flanked by slender pilasters and crowned with an urn finial (modelled on the example at John Knox's house, Edinburgh). A wreath at the centre is flanked by initials "IM" and "EC" (for James Miller and Eveline Mary Curzon). The recessed central door has a railed surround with cornice and an open pedimented, scroll-flanked armorial panel above (after the pattern at Redhouse Castle, East Lothian). This panel bears Miller's crest with the motto "Omne Bonum Superne" and the date 1895 (modelled on the armorial at Craighouse, Edinburgh), with a baluster finial flanking it. The door itself is boarded with a fretted cast and wrought-iron knocker dated 1895, decorated with a hunting dog. A window sits beneath the corbel course in the bay to the left.

The north-east elevation features a broad bay to the left with an off-centre ground window and an attic window above that breaks the eaves with a gabled dormerhead carved with a rose above a date panel reading 1895. A small window in the re-entrant angle on the return to the right has a weasel(?)-carved label-stop to its hoodmould above. A lower, narrow bay recessed to the right contains a small window with corbelled wallhead. A screen wall encloses the service court to the outer right, featuring a wide roll-moulded gateway with strapwork cartouche to its lintel and a gablet cope wallhead. The dovecot stands to the outer right.

The south-west elevation has a gabled bay blank at ground with rounded corner, corbelled to square above, and a large attic window in a corbelled panel with sawtooth coping (after the type at the Council House, Leith). A recessed single-storey bay to the left contains a window with a gablet-coped screen wall to the outer left.

The north-west elevation, at the rear of the taller block, has a small attic window at centre and a large ground-floor window to the right. A projecting, gabled single-storey block to the left has a door at ground, flanked by a small window, and a small window in the gablehead set within an ogee panel with blind shield above its lintel.

The dovecot is a small, rectangular-plan gabled structure at the north-west end of the service court, adjoined to the cottage by the service court's screen walls. It has a rounded corner to the east and north, corbelled to square under a battered alighting course encircling the structure. Oval panels in the gableheads contain flight-holes and ledges; the south-west panel sits above a narrow window and is stepped by the alighting course. A small window at the centre opens to the north-west. Three doors to the south-east elevation provide access: the central door is deep-set and leads to the dovecot interior, while the flanking doors open to store cupboards.

The glazing features small-pane timber sash and case windows throughout, with larger upper sashes to the larger windows. One window has lead-pane glazing with hoodmould. The roof is covered in grey slate with crowstepped skews and beak skewputts. Ashlar ridges each bear carved ashlar floreate finials. Gablehead stacks, one to the rear and one to the ridge of the taller block, are constructed in ashlar with billet-moulding to battered ashlar coping. Decorative lead rainwater hoppers are fitted.

Interior details are notably fine and original. An ashlar screen wall to the stair has rounded angles and corbel above, with a short wrought-iron balustrade. The timber stair treads have roll-moulded edges. Billeted mantlepieces frame roll-moulded fire surrounds with cast-iron grates; one grate is rose-studded, the other embossed with a lattice pattern. A corbelled mantlepiece frames a timber roll-moulded surround to a later grate and cheeks. A billeted cornice frames the large attic window. Fine panelled, built-in linen cupboards, dating to the 17th century, feature carved moulding in the flutes of pilasters framing the upper stage and fleuron studs to each panel. The upper panels are round-headed, with fluted frieze and cornice. A recessed, painted timber wall cupboard has fluted pilasters, scroll-flanked and flower-studded, with fluted frieze and cornice. Wrought-iron door handles are of fleuron and drop-heart design.

A remaining railed gatepier in wrought-iron survives with a stylised finial, probably by Thomas Hadden. A timber fence now replaces the original railing.