Easter And Wester Caerlee (Formerly Caerlee House) Wash House

Easter and Wester Caerlee, originally Caerlee House, is a large, irregular-plan villa built in the Elizabethan style, with extensions and additions over several phases. The core of the building dates to 1865, designed by David Bryce, with subsequent work by David Robertson in 1878, J Walker Todd in 1913, and further additions to the west; the laundry block is also of 1913. The villa is now subdivided.

The building is constructed of coursed snecked ashlar stone with chamfered margins, while the rear is built of whinstone rubble with sandstone margins. It has a prominent base course and partial eaves course. The windows are mullioned and transomed. The east front features a dated, gabled, shouldered-arch entrance porch with a later infilled door surround and glazing, flanked by stone urns on chamfered plinths. An advanced gabled bay to the right of the south elevation has curved corbelled corner details, and a carved stone plaque bearing a ship motif and the inscription 'Disce Pati' is present. A 20th-century sun room has been added to the southwest corner.

Most windows are timber sash and case with plain glazing, although the west section has square-pane leaded metal-framed windows. The main entrance door is timber with iron studs. The roof is grey slate, with tall corniced ashlar triple diamond end stacks, moulded skews with piended skewputts and apex finials, and blank square tympanum plaques. Cast-iron rainwater goods are fitted.

The interior retains a fine decorative scheme reflecting the building’s different phases. The original section of the house includes an Adam-style fireplace in the drawing room, a main stair with a decorative cast-iron balustrade, six-panel doors, and decorative timber shutters. The central section contains a large dining room with a marble insert chimneypiece, panelled shutters and doors with diamond detailing, and decorative plaster cornices. The 1913 west section has a former billiard room in a Lorimer style, featuring a curved ceiling, banded plasterwork, a corniced and pilastered panelled timber fireplace recess incorporating seats and a stone mantelpiece with Delft tiles. Delft tile mantelpieces are also located on the upper floor.

To the rear of the main house is a two-storey, L-plan, gabled, rendered wash house with adjoining steps built on the steep ground. Boarded doors and multi-pane timber casement windows are present. A single-storey store is adjacent. A rendered single garage with a stone gable end stack and a lean-to timber sun room are also attached.