Description

Circa 1770. 2-storey, 3-bay former lock keeper's cottage; 2 storeys to N (rear), single storey to S, facing canal. Squared rubble, ashlar dressings. Later 20th century, tall single-storey lean-to extension at ground floor E.

S (PRINCIPAL) ELEVATION: single storey, former entrance façade to canal tow-path at upper floor level. Central, gabled entrance bay; raised, chamfered door architrave. Windows to flanking bays with raised, chamfered margins; stone cills. Rectangular moulded cornice to eaves and gable.

W ELEVATION: window to 1st floor right.

N ELEVATION: 2 storeys. 3 bays at ground floor, central opening converted from doorway. Single openings to flanking bays. 2 narrow openings to 2nd bay, off-centre left and right; left opening shorter than right, possibly later. Raised, chamfered margins to all openings. Entrance through extension to E.

E ELEVATION: openings to ground floor right and 1st floor left. Extension to centre ground floor.

Statement of Interest

One of the best preserved examples of canal related housing along the Forth and Clyde canal, this cottage provided accommodation for the keeper of Wynford Lock, the 20th set of locks on the canal. Construction of the canal reached Wyndford around 1771, 3 years after it was started at Grangemouth. The accommodation was originally confined to the upper floor, with the lower floor used as stables for the horses that worked the canal. Lock 20 was used as a terminus for the pleasure steamers that became a popular attraction on the canal, but this terminus was later moved to the newly built stables at Glasgow Road, Kirkintilloch (see separate listing). It was also used as a station for the 'Swifts' passenger boats, and as a delivery point for goods going to and from the neighbouring Bankier Distillery (demolished 1990). Across the canal sits a small bothy used by the lock-keeper at work, and a building that was originally an Inn for canal workers (occasionally doubling as a stables). This has now been renovated into private housing. The cottage was in use until the mid-20th century, when the canal was closed and the cottage bricked up and de-roofed. It was renovated in the mid to late 1990s.

Wyndford Lock Keeper's cottage lies within the amenity zone for the Antonine Wall recommended in D N Skinner The Countryside of the Antonine Wall (1973), and which will form the basis of the buffer zone, yet to be defined, for the proposed Antonine Wall World Heritage Site.

External Links

• Historic Environment Scotland Listing
• Wikidata Q17826167

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  Sussex: West (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Cambridgeshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Period property manual, victorian house manual 2 books collection set by ian rock
• 
  [(Cumberland and Westmorland)] [By (author) Nikolaus Pevsner] published on (January, 1967)
• 
  Renovating Old Houses: Bringing New Life to Vintage Homes (For Pros By Pros)
• 
  Essex: Buildings of England Series (Buildings of England) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)