Description

Mid to later 19th century; billiard room (marriage room) addition, 1891-5. 2-storey and attic, 3-bay, rectangular-plan, gabled Tudor house and hall with inglenook fireplace, converted to municipal chambers. Harled with ashlar dressings. Base and eaves courses. Hoodmoulds, pointed-arch windows. Architraved surrounds and stone mullions.

SE (PRINCIPAL) ELEVATION: symmetrical. Hoodmoulded window to centre bay at ground, with further window at 1st floor. Slightly advanced flanking gabled bays, each with canted tripartite window and decorative blocking course to ground, window to 1st floor and hoodmoulded pointed-arch window in gablehead, that to left with pendant finial and that to right with block finial.

SW (ENTRANCE) ELEVATION: flat-roofed porch with 2 windows projecting from centre and left bays at ground, moulded doorway with panelled timber door on return to right and further window in bay to right, all openings hoodmoulded; 1st floor with window in slightly advanced gabled bay to left, and further window in raised surround with moulded brackets and tri-lobe detail to typanum of pediment breaking eaves above; hoodmoulded pointed-arch window in gablehead to left with pendant finial.

NE ELEVATION: slightly advanced gabled bay to left of centre with tripartite window to ground and single window above with hoodmould and mask label-stops, blind opening in gablehead. Bays to right of centre with link (connecting hall) projecting at ground, and 2 windows to 1st floor.

NW (REAR) ELEVATION: asymmetrical elevation with variety of elements including gabled bay to left with single storey offices at ground.

4- and 12-pane glazing patterns in timber sash and case windows, gablehead windows decoratively-astragalled, margined stair window to NW. Grey slates. Coped harled stacks; ashlar-coped skews and moulded skewputts.

INTERIOR: decorative plasterwork cornicing; timber-balustered dog-leg staircase with ball-and-spike finialled newels; attic stair with decorative cast-iron balusters and timber handrail; segmental-headed arches. Porch with brass plaque worded:

'THIS BUILDING WAS PRESENTED

BY

SIR ROBERT BALFOUR BART,

TO THE TOWN OF LEVEN AS

MUNICIPAL CHAMBERS

ON 1ST JULY, 1929

IN MEMORY OF HIS BROTHER

EX-PROVOST JOHN BALFOUR'

MARRIAGE ROOM: harled, rectangular-plan, single storey former billiard room with base course, moulded string courses and deep blocking course. Bracketed cills and stone mullions.

NE ELEVATION: lower rounded bay with 3 windows and decorative blocking course projecting from centre, ball-finialled gablehead with blind opening behind blocking course above.

SE ELEVATION: oriel-style bipartite window to right of centre, bay to left blank, link (connecting house) to outer left.

NW ELEVATION: lower bay (inglenook) with dominant shouldered stack to left projecting from centre, door in recessed bay to left and window to right.

Plate glass glazing in timber sash and case windows. Grey slates. Coped, harled stack, ashlar-coped skews and cast-iron downpipes with decorative rainwater hoppers.

INTERIOR: link with panelled timber walls and mosaic tiled floor. Hall with panelled dado and plain cornicing. Broad depressed arch and moulded keystone to raised dais at SW, adjacent round-headed arch with carved timber screen and small-pane coloured leaded glass with sunburst-astragalled round-headed top-lights. Inglenook to NW with round-headed niches flanking fireplace with cast-iron grate and decoratively-tiled slips, heavily moulded surround with carved frieze and brackets supporting deep cornice with temple-style overmantel cabinet.

WALLED GARDEN AND LAMP BRACKETS: flat-coped brick walled garden to NE; decorative cast-iron lamp brackets on modern brick piers.

Statement of Interest

Carberry was built by the Balfour family. The 'Billiard Room' (now the Marriage Room), with a particularly fine interior, was added by WJC Balfour in 1895. The building was given to the town of Leven in 1929, and is now (1999) Fife Council Offices. The sundial in the grounds of Carberry House is listed separately, category 'B'.

External Links

• Historic Environment Scotland Listing
• Wikidata Q17810402

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

• 
  This Old House: Restoring, Rehabilitating, and Renovating an Older House
• 
  Period property manual, victorian house manual 2 books collection set by ian rock
• 
  Hertfordshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Central Leinster: Kildare, Laois and Offaly (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of Ireland)
• 
  Dorset (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Essex: Buildings of England Series (Buildings of England) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)