History in Structure

Elphinstone Tower

A Category B Listed Building in Tranent, East Lothian

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Coordinates

Latitude: 55.9177 / 55°55'3"N

Longitude: -2.9764 / 2°58'35"W

OS Eastings: 339069

OS Northings: 669833

OS Grid: NT390698

Mapcode National: GBR 70N0.DH

Mapcode Global: WH7V1.7JX8

Plus Code: 9C7VW29F+3C

Entry Name: Elphinstone Tower

Listing Name: Elphinstone Tower with Gatepiers and Garden Walls

Listing Date: 30 March 1992

Category: B

Source: Historic Scotland

Source ID: 353330

Historic Scotland Designation Reference: LB19069

Building Class: Cultural

ID on this website: 200353330

Location: Tranent

County: East Lothian

Electoral Ward: Tranent, Wallyford and Macmerry

Parish: Tranent

Traditional County: East Lothian

Tagged with: Farmhouse

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Prestonpans

Description

Almost certainly Peddie and Kinnear, dated 1865. 2-storey L-plan Baronial villa with single storey service wing. Stugged cream sandstone, squared and snecked, with plain, droved and stugged ashlar dressings. Base course; crowsteps and beak skewputts; stone mullions. 1st floor windows breaking eaves in steeply pitched gabled dormerheads.

N (ENTRANCE) ELEVATION: doorway set in round tower in re-entrant angle; moulded surround with fleuron and hoodmould voerstepping blank

armourial panel above; boarded door and plate glass fanlight; hoodmould over narrow 1st floor window; steep candle-snuffer roof with lead flashing and ball finial. Gabled wing advanced to left with window to each floor. Narrow hall and stair windows flanking tower to right, and window to each bay to outer right.

S ELEVATION: 3 irregular bays, outer bay to right gables; 2 bipartite windows at ground; 3 1st floor windows. Sizeable, ornate armorial panel set between 1st floor windows to left.

W ELEVATION: double gabled with window to each floor of each bay and carved panels in gableheads, date to right panels, initials to left. Gablehead stacks.

E ELEVATION: gabled bay to left with window to each floor; tall single storey, gabled service wing projecting at left, with lower piend-roofed block adjoined to E, possibly an earlier structure, altered on incorporation 1865.

Small-pane glazing pattern in sash and case windows. Grey slates. Ashlar coped ashlar stacks.

INTERIOR: winding cantilevered stair with decorative cast-iron balustrade. Hoseshoe grates in angle chimneypiece to bedrooms.

GATEPIERS AND GARDEN WALLS: corniced ashlar gatepiers to NW of hosue, withstepped pyramidal caps. Rubble garden walls.

Statement of Interest

The 15th century Elphinstone Tower, in the grounds of which the 1865 house was built, was razed to the ground in 1955 owing to its dangerous condition.

Sunnyside Farmhouse, Prestonkirk Parish, East Lothian, by Peddie and kinnear, was designed in a strikingly similar manner to the present Elphinstone tower.

Scheduled monument.

External Links

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