Description

John Henderson, circa 1860. 2-storey (1st floor breaking eaves), 3-bay house extending to rear (N) to form a large gabled, L-plan villa (former manse). Well-tooled whinstone rubble with droved red ashlar sandstone quoins and dressings with chamfered arrises. Set in large garden grounds slightly to the E of Lamington village. Finely detailed, gabled stone open entrance porch inscribed 'ABC' with round headed windows to side. Stone mullioned windows with angled stone hoodmould lintels to principal elevation. Later 19th century canted bay window and later 20th century stone and timber conservatory additions to W elevation.

Mostly 8- and 12-pane glazing pattern in timber sash and case windows with some plate glass sashes. Alternating courses of plain and fishtail slates on timber overhanging bracketed eaves. Squared, corniced stone ridge stacks with decorative clay cans.

INTERIOR: good original decorative scheme in place. Decorative cornicing to principal rooms, timber shutters and panelled woodwork with tall skirtings. Plain timber balustrades; 5-panel timber doors; timber fireplaces to most rooms with tiled or cast iron inserts. Secondary service stair to rear section

Statement of Interest

Clannalba is a good example of a mid 19th century manse with a fine gabled roofline and good polychromatic stonework. Built as the Parsonage for the Trinity Chapel (see separate listing) in Lamington Village the building still retains its original plan form. During the 20th century it was used as the Opportunity Holiday House, before being converted to its current used as a residential care home in 1995, at which point a security gate was installed.

In 1838 Alexander Cochrane MP (b1816), grandson of the Earl of Dundonald, inherited the Baillie family estate of Lamington at which time he took on its name to become Alexander Baillie Cochrane. He became Lord Lamington in 1883. Baillie-Cochrane inherited a modest estate and set about rebuilding it from 1844 following his marriage to Anabella Drummond, and began by making large additions to the existing shooting lodge in Elizabethan style to form the, now demolished, Lamington House. At the time Lamington village was a series of bothies stretched along the old roadside to the south of the House. He set about building a new village in a programme of improvements to the NE of the house with the earliest building dating to the 1840s and the latest to the 1870s. At this time the main road was redirected to the NW between the two gate lodges to afford privacy to Lamington House and Estate. These village buildings survive today and maintain the character of a planned estate village as they were designed.

The architect of the village is not known however it is thought William Spence (1806?-1883) may have been involved in the building of some of the village estate buildings. He built Coulter Mains house in the adjacent Coulter Parish. Spence worked as an assistant to both David Bryce and William Burn and, the first house with which he was associated, Coulter Mains house, bears elements of the Burn and Bryce school. There are elements of design in the estate houses of the village which also have these characteristics.

The Lamington Papers held in the Mitchell Archive include a letter from Architect David Bryce in 1838 stating that he encloses his revised, scaled down plans for the shooting lodge at Lamington. It is not known whether he carried out the commission for the shooting lodge which became Lamington House or whether the job was completed by someone else. The architects Wardrop and Brown are known to have carried out a music room addition in 1858.

A sketch in the Biggar Museums Trust Archive by Rev E Kershaw 1864, resident at the time, shows the entrance elevation as existing. The 'ABC' inscribed stone over doorway in the porch is the initials of Anabella Baillie Cochrane, wife of the first Lord Lamington who presided over the building of the planned estate village, and the Trinity Chapel to which the former parsonage relates.

The Scottish Society for Autism currently (2009) provides residential and respite care for children and young adults with autism at Clannalba. Separate later 20th century office building in grounds to N.

List Description revised at resurvey (2010).

External Links

• Historic Environment Scotland Listing
• Wikidata Q56616736

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

• 
  Oxfordshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Suffolk: West: The Buildings of England (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Berkshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  [(Cumberland and Westmorland)] [By (author) Nikolaus Pevsner] published on (January, 1967)
• 
  London 6: Westminster (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England): Westminster v. 6
• 
  Gloucestershire 1: The Cotswolds: Cotswolds Pt. 1 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)