Sunnybrae Lodge, Galasheils Road, Walkerburn, Innerleithen, Scottish Borders

Description

FT Pilkington, 1868. One of an identical pair of single storey, symmetrical lozenge-plan, idiosyncratic Ruskinian / early Gothic style entrance lodges with apsed ends and triple gabled entrance porches and attached L-plan single storey, multi-gabled stable range enclosed by gated wall. Polychromatic appearance due to squared and textured whinstone rubble with tooled ashlar dressings (tabbed quoins to window) and sculptured details. Ashlar cill and moulded wallhead band courses; sunk diamond panels with botanical motifs. Pitched and bowed roof with bracketed eaves and foliate ball and spike finials.

E (DRIVE / ENTRANCE) ELEVATION AND GATEPIER: central triangular gabletted porch: to right cant, surround with arched shoulders (with chamfered arrises and advance sloped base course) containing 2-leaf timber boarded entrance door, stylised floriate keystone, roll-moulded and chamfered outer arrises leading to gablehead with feather-edged skews terminating in floriate putts and stylised fleur-de-lis finial. Similarly styled, blind narrow gable to centre with gatepier attached: square ashlar gatepier with advanced sloping base, squared shaft with chamfered upper angles and corbels supporting the stylised floriate caps. Left canted gable again similarly styled with ogee arch-headed window within ashlar surround with sloped drip cill. Blind sides of lodge flanking entrance with central sunken diamond panel with spikey botanical motif touching sill and moulded eaves course.

S (ROAD) ELEVATION: to right, main bowed-end of lodge with paired bipartite windows; to centre, blind original wall with 3 inset quatrefoil stones beneath plain wallhead coping. Adjoining to left, stables (see below) and to extreme left, boundary wall.

W (REAR) ELEVATION: single storey section to left.

N ELEVATION: to left, main bowed end of lodge with paired bipartite windows; to centre, blind original wall with 3 inset quatrefoil stones beneath plain wallhead coping; adjoining stable wall to right (see STABLES).

STABLES:

S (ROAD) ELEVATION: adjoining lodge to left, rear elevation of very high (due to sloped nature of site) 4 section whinstone stable range with tabbed ashlar quoins and continuous band course: 1st and 3rd sections of similar design with blind base, gabled bipartite wallhead dormer breaking eaves (feather-edged skews and shaped putts terminating in roll-moulded finial), paired quatrefoil lights within squared ashlar stones flanking dormer; slightly advanced high gable to 2nd bay with canted ashlar sections in lower re-entrant angles, paired windows to gablehead with 3 vertically placed square lights flanking advanced moulded geometric base of gablehead stack (contains diamond motif panel); similarly styled gable to 4th bay with tripartite window near gablehead.

W ELEVATION: blind wall of similar styling.

N ELEVATION: L-plan single storey stable block with regularly placed square-headed cart arches with paired timber doors to main body; arm extending to N now derelict and partially collapsed leading to loss of original plan. Stables enclosed by whinstone wall running diagonally across entrance with pair of high square ashlar gatepiers with pyramidal caps and wrought-iron gates with dog bars. Further stepped wall continues up hill toward Sunnybrae House.

E ELEVATION: adjoins W elevation of lodge.

Plate-glass glazing in timber frames; ogee arch-headed plate-glass window to road elevation of porch; leaded glass of diamond quarry remaining in some stable windows, plain glass in quatrefoil lights. Pitched slated main roof with slated bowed ends and canted triple gabled porch; lead ridging, flashings and valleys; lead foliate ball and spike finals to ends of roofline and to rear apex of gabletted porch. Moulded cornice concealing painted cast-iron gutters, downpipes concealed in angle of porch. Paired tall ashlar stacks to centre of roofline with swept bases, projecting stylised floriate neck copes and hexagonal cans.

INTERIOR: in lodged, original timber work surviving including working sets of panelled shutters; 2-leaf timber boarded entrance doors, internal doors. Interior of stables not seen.

BOUNDARY WALL: tall squared whinstone rubble boundary wall extending E along Galashiels Road.

Statement of Interest

Part of an A-Group with Stoneyhill House and Sunnybrae Lodge. The village of Walkerburn grew up around the textile mills of Tweedvale and (later) Tweedholm of Henry Ballantyne, the founder of the village. He was also responsible for the earliest workers' housing and laying out the village we see today. By his death in 1865, Walkerburn was a flourishing manufacturing village with a population of just under 800 people. The company and the welfare of its staff were passed to his five sons (until 1870 when 3 of them left to run a mill in Innerleithen. David and John Ballantyne remained in charge of the Walkerburn mills and set about improving not only their own housing, but also the amenities of the village). After his father's death, John built a commodious villa to the east called Stoneyhill. 3 Ballantyne houses stood grouped together on this side of the road within one large subdivided plot (all listed separately). Although each had their own private gardens, a large part of the land was laid out with walks and grassed areas accessible to all 3 properties. This is one of a pair of identical lodges on Galashiels Road flanking the entrance to John Ballantyne's home Stoneyhill House, also by Pilkington (of Pilkington and Bell, 2 Hill Street, Edinburgh) and David Ballantyne's Sunnybrae House. Sunnybrae Lodge has this Pilkington stable adjoining it, as Stoneyhill House has its own separate stables. To the W. Henry's former house Tweedvale got its own lodge at the same time (also by Pilkington). The unusual sunken diamond panels are a motif that was also used by Pilkington on his Morebattle Church of 1866, the botanical in-fills there replaced by stylised stars. Listed as a fine example of a Pilkington lodge building retaining external original features; also highly prized as one of a group of 3 on the same street and for its importance as a Ballantyne property.

External Links

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