Crookston House

Crookston House

A substantial country house built in 1815–17 and substantially enlarged and remodelled in Jacobean style by the architects Brown & Wardrop between 1860 and 1864, with further alterations by Thomas McCrae in 1937–8. The building is two storeys with an attic and basement, arranged on an irregular plan across roughly five bays. The ground falls away to the rear, and the house is accompanied by a range of single-storey ancillary buildings adjoining the back.

The main structure is constructed of squared, coursed bull-faced grey whinstone with polished yellow sandstone ashlar dressings. Band courses mark each floor, and there is an eaves cornice. The most distinctive features are the large curvilinear dormer gables linked by a balustraded parapet with coped and finial-topped gables, corner turrets, and rusticated long and short quoins. The fenestration is regular with tabbed margins and projecting cills. Two-storey circular flat-roofed corner turrets are corbelled out at the first floor level.

The principal south elevation is symmetrical across five bays and features a deep central porch with a ball-finial and balustraded parapet, approached by three stone steps to a single-leaf timber-panelled door with a rectangular light above. The door is set within an advanced architrave with an open pediment enclosing the date 1864 and the Clan Borthwick crest bearing the motto 'QUI CONDUCIT'. A central gable-headed dormer is flanked by two curvilinear gables. The west elevation includes a single-storey stone-mullioned canted window and a three-bay round-arched timber conservatory set within a re-entrant angle of an advanced wing. The north (rear) elevation displays two gabled wings flanking a central service courtyard with a crenellated screen wall and a five-storey square-plan tower. The right wing incorporates corner turrets and a truncated gablehead stack, whilst the left wing features a prominent gablehead stack. A long elevation of single-storey ancillary buildings extends to the left.

Windows are predominantly 12-pane glazing in timber sash and case windows, with plate glass to the principal floor and 4-pane glazing to the attic. Corniced ashlar stacks with buff clay cans are prominent. The roof is grey slate, with cast-iron rainwater goods featuring hoppers.

The balustrading extends from each side of the porch and turns around the side elevations with balustraded sections and ball finials at corners. Low area walls complete this scheme. A terraced garden occupies the space within the truncated walls of a former ballroom to the west of the house, and a garden terrace in front of the house is embellished with a carved ornamental birdbath.

Internally, stone steps within the front porch lead to a central hall. A timber scale and platt staircase with a closed-string timber balustrade and square panelled newels supporting carved urns was installed in the 1930s and is lit by a round-arched stained-glass window. Principal rooms feature marble chimneypieces and decorative plasterwork ceilings, and working timber shutters survive in some rooms.

The gates and gatepiers, dated 1871, comprise four rusticated gatepiers constructed of polished sandstone ashlar with ornamental iron gates and coped quadrant wing walls. Tall piers flank the carriageway, whilst lower plainer piers serve the foot gates. Each structure has a base course, double string course, and pyramidal caps. The central piers are surmounted by sculpted angels with shields, mounted on dated and initialled corniced plinths. The gates themselves are decorative cast iron with finials, and the pedestrian gates feature decorative floreate scrolls.