Description

James MacLaren, dated 1862. Single and 2-storey and attic, irregular-plan, gabled villa. Snecked rubble with ashlar dressings, grey slate roof. Painted base course, moulded string course at 1st floor and wallhead; single and paired windows, most with painted moulded architraves, 2- and 4-pane sash and case frames; crowstep gables with bracketted skewputts; moulded stacks.

E ELEVATION: painted entrance porch at off-centre re-entrant; moulded door case, open-work parapet with sculpted helaldic shield at left return. Window at recessed bay at left, 2 windows at 1st floor symmetrically arranged, centralshouldered wallhead stack with heraldic date panel. Advanced gable stack at right with paired windows at ground and 1st floor, pedimented window at attic. Recessed bay at far right with paired windows at ground and 1st floor. Single storey and attic service wing at outer right with 2 windows and dormer, and coach house linked by short coped wall with moulded entrance door.

S ELEVATION: 3-bay, symmetrical. Paired windows at ground and 1st floor centre, flanked by slightly advanced gables each sonsiting of 2-storey, tripartite canted windows with open-work parapet, window at attic with broken segmental pediment and thistle motif lintel.

W ELEVATION: main block at right, door at centre with later porch and forestair to door and window at 1st floor; slightly advanced steeply-pitched gable at left with bipartite window at ground and 1st floor (later window at right), window at attic with quasi-pediment; shouldered wallhead stack at right breaking through eaves with blank heraldic panel and 3 octagonal linked stacks; bay at far right with window at 1st floor; decorative cast-iron snow catchers. Single storey billiard room bay at left. Gable at centre with partially blocked Venetian-type window; 7-light dormer; octagonal gablehead stack at left.

N ELEVATION: single storey outbuildings at ground floor, 2 asymmnetrical gables withgablehead stacks at main house.

INTERIOR: encaustic tiles and some stained glass windows in porch; compartmentalised ceilings with decorative cornices and plasterwork; some original chimneypieces.

SUMMERHOUSE: circular-plan, rubble built French gothic summerhouse with rusticated dressings; bracketted eaves to finialled conical roof with fishscale slates.

LAMP STANDARDS: 2 identical cast-iron ornamental lamp standards in drive, lanterns missing.

Statement of Interest

Taymount was built for Rober Guild, shipowner, whose (original) monogram 'RG Taymount' is set into a modern garden wall at the north east of the house. The heraldic shield at the entrance porch shows a wheatsheaf and the inscription 'dorimus providebit taymount'. There was formerly a conservatory at the west elevation, hence the snow catchers at the roof. Taymount is subdivided into 4 units; the lodge at Claypotts Road is not listed.

External Links

• Historic Environment Scotland Listing
• Wikidata Q17813772

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

• 
  London 6: Westminster (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England): Westminster v. 6
• 
  Listed Buildings, Conservation Areas and Monuments
• 
  Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990
• 
  Northamptonshire: Buildings of England Series (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Oxfordshire: North and West (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Harrow on the Hill: A photographic portrayal of listed buildings and structures (Historic Buildings Picture Guides)