Description

1898; altered to rear. 2-storey and attic, 5-bay Tudor Jacobean mansion house with 4-stage tower. Squared and snecked rubble with dressed ashlar margins. Moulded string courses. Segmentally-pedimented windowheads; corbels; domed turnpike stair and balustraded parapet. Chamfered arrises, stone transoms and mullions.

SE (PRINCIPAL) ELEVATION: bays flanking centre tower (see below) with 6-light transomed windows to each floor, those to ground slightly advanced with corniced blocking course, and those to 1st floor giving way to dormer gablets with glazed arrowslits. Outer gabled bays with full-height canted 10-light transomed window to each floor, and segmental pediment with carved detail to roll-moulded panel on tympanum; small bipartite window, also segmentally-pedimented, to recessed gableheads.

SE TOWER: 4-stage tower with round 3-stage corbelled tourelle to SW angle, situated to centre bay of principal elevation. Steps with flanking dwarf walls lead to segmental-arched keystoned doorcase with flanking paired columns and pilasters supporting cushion capitals with grouped obelisk finials breaking into 2nd stage, 2-leaf door with flanking part-glazed lights and small-pane segmental fanlight. 2nd stage with 4-light transomed window giving way to cavetto cornice and 3rd stage with small tripartite window below stepped hoodmould and corbelled base of turret. 4th stage SE with 4-light transomed window and narrow light to turret, further turret window and slightly advanced chimney breast to SW, balustraded 5-part canted window with adjacent window to left at NW, and broad stack to NE. 3rd stage of turret projecting from balustraded parapet with small tripartite window to each elevation, mutuled cornice and lead dome with decorative cast-iron weathervane finial.

SW ELEVATION: canted 10-light transomed window with deep blocking course to left of centre at ground, with 6-light transomed window above; 2-light transomed window to right at each floor, and M-gable above cornice, that to left with arrowslit and that to right with gablehead stack.

NE ELEVATION: blank bay to left of centre with dominant wallhead stack, asymmetrical fenestration in bay to centre and slightly advanced lower gable to right with window slapping at ground and pedimented dormer windows breaking eaves on returns, that to right bipartite.

NW (REAR) ELEVATION: lower wing projecting to left of centre with bipartite window to small bowed bay on moulded consoles bridging re-entrant angle at 1st floor; paired 4-light transomed stair windows to centre and modern extension to right.

Small-pane and plate glass glazing patterns in timber sash and case windows; decoratively-astragalled coloured glass to stair windows; coloured glass band to head of top lights at SE. Grey slates. Coped, banded and shouldered ashlar stacks with some cans; ashlar-coped skews with some moulded skewputts; cast-iron downpipes with decorative rainwater hoppers and fixings.

INTERIOR: decorative plasterwork cornices; carved timber fireplaces; panelled soffits and architraved doors; panelled dadoes and dado rails. Vestibule with segmental-headed screen doors, mosaic-patterned floor and carved fireplace lined with Delft tiles. Entrance hall with fluted column, grand scale-and-platt staircase, decorative balusters and 3-stage newel post with urn finial; 2 coloured glass stair windows. Fine carved timber fireplaces, those to 1st floor with overmantels.

Statement of Interest

Linnwood Hall, known locally as 'Carlow Mansions', was built for Charles Carlow, Chairman of the Fife Coal Company, Deputy Chairman of the North British Rail Company and Director of the Royal Bank. In 1947 his son, Charles Augustus, gave the house as a convalescent home for miners wives and women colliery workers. The Carlow Convalescent Home closed in 1970, subsequently becoming a residential school for Fife Educational Department, latterly a day school but no longer in use as such 1999. The Carlow Memorial Hall (listed separately) was built by Charles Ausgustus for his father. Linnwood Hall Lodge House and Walled Garden are listed separately.

External Links

• Historic Environment Scotland Listing
• Wikidata Q17810449

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

• 
  Listed Buildings: The Law and Practice of History Buildings, Ancient Monuments and Conservation Areas
• 
  Berkshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  London 1: The City of London: City of London v. 1 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Oxfordshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Cork: City and County (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of Ireland)
• 
  Oxfordshire: North and West (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)