Steading, Glen Farm, The Glen, Traquair, Scottish Borders

Description

Circa 1854 for Sir Charles Tennant (see NOTES). 2-storey, 8-bay, rectangular-plan cartshed with wallhead dormers to upper floor and adjoining single storey, 2-bay store; to rear, 2-storey, multi-bayed L-plan byre and hayloft range with adjoining single storey, lean-to to N with much later modern roof. Coursed, squared and random local whinstone rubble with tabbed sandstone ashlar quoins and dressings (all with chamfered arrises). Skew gabled with moulded putts.

CARTSHED RANGE:

SE (PRINCIPAL) ELEVATION: 7 regularly placed segmental-headed ashlar cart arches with chamfered arrises; to upper storey, 7 aligned stone wallhead dormers (all with projecting sills) breaking eaves and rising into stone gables with moulded putts and roll apex finial. To left return, blind gabled end rising into squared gablehead stack; ground floor of right return gable end concealed by single storey, 2-bay gabled building of similar style. Rear elevation blind at ground floor with sparse fenestration to upper level (including window to left and hayloft door to right); rear hayloft and byre range adjoining to left.

BYRE AND HAYLOFT RANGE:

SW (COURTYARD) ELEVATION: 2-storey range with iron beamed cart arch to 3rd bay on ground floor, pedestrian door between bays 4 and 5, window between bays 5 and 6 (remnants of lean-to to extreme left of ground floor in re-entrant angle of regularly fenestrated advancing SW arm). To upper floor, 6 regular bays with door in 3rd and 5th bays and windows to other. To attic, 4 timber gabled attic ventilators (aligned between lower bays) with louvred ventilators to fronts.

NW ELEVATION: piend-roofed end with 2 widely spaced segmental-headed cart arches to ground floor (now byre) with pedestrian entrance to right; 4 bays to 1st floor with former hayloft entrance in 3rd bay, others windows. To attic, 2 timber ventilation gables (timber louvers remain to left gable) placed between bays 1 and 2 and bays 3 and 4. Adjoining to far left, single storey stone range with now blind segmental-headed cart arch to centre (with central window) and much later door to left; modern corrugated upper wall rises into lean-to style roof (range extends down the NE of byre and hayloft range concealing original elevation; timber gabled ventilators still visible to roof of original range).

Cartshed with 12-pane glazing in timber sash and case windows. Rear byre and hayloft range: 6-pane glazed upper sashes with timber ventilation in lieu of glazing (some windows now missing). Pitched slate roof to cart shed with lead ridging; piended slate roof to rear byre and lofts with lead ridging and gabled timber ventilators with pitched slate roofs. Painted cast-iron rainwater goods. Squared ashlar gablehead stacks to cart shed with paired plain cans; similar shorter stack to single storey building with single octagonal can.

INTERIOR: in use as a working farm: cart arches used for the storage of machinery and vehicles, the upper floors are stores; the large building to rear contains ground floor byres (with timber feeding mangers) and hayloft and stores to upper floors; some dovecotes housed in timber ventilating gables to roof.

Statement of Interest

Part of an A-Group with all other Glen estate buildings. Sited near the centre of the estate and built into a sloped site. The Glen estate can be traced as far back as 1296 when Sarra of the Glen swore allegiance to King Edward I of England. The estate remained in the family's hand until around 1512, when the grounds became fragmented and parts were sold to neighbouring landowners and families. By the 1700's, there were 2 main parts of the estate, Easter and Wester Glen. Easter Glen was sold to Alexander Allan (an Edinburgh banker) in 1796 for #10,500. At this point, the house was a fairly small plain farmhouse. His son, William Allan (Lord Provost of Edinburgh) was responsible for enlarging and extending the house, the architect being his friend William Playfair (see The Temple, listed separately); even after improvement it was still not regarded as being fit for a landowner's principal residence. The 3,500-acre estate was bought in 1852/3 by Sir Charles Tennant, owner of the chemical works of St. Rollox, Glasgow, for #33,140. The house was by then outdated and not suited to modern family life; he commissioned David Bryce to design a baronial style house, to which a tower (also by Bryce) was added in 1874. Tennant continually improved the estate landscape (1860-1890) and was responsible for the building of a school, farm, worker's and estate cottages, walled kitchen garden and kennels making The Glen virtually self-sufficient. In 1897, there were approximately 105 estate workers doing a range of jobs; including maids, cooks and servants within the house and gardeners, foresters, shepherds, carters, cattlemen and gamekeepers on the estate. The estate had its own masons and joiners, as well as its own whinstone quarries. The farm steading is sited at the core of the estate in the part that resembles a village. This building is the road-facing arm of an elongated L-plan range, which runs to the NW; a U-plan range, which extended to the S and W flanked the left side of the entrance and together they formed an enclosed courtyard with covered cattle court to rear. The entrance to the inner court has always been to the S of the cart shed's left gable (note the boulder to protect the angle). The still partially cobbled inner court has been altered, with a modern covered cattle court replacing the older one. The main buildings remain intact, although a heightened corrugated-metal roofed building now partially conceals the rear of the hayloft and byre range. The farm is still in use, predominantly for sheep but in the past there was a cattleman for the cows. The milk provided was used to make butter and cheese in the dairy as well as being used for the main house and all the residents. The main elevation of the cart shed bears a striking stylistic resemblance to the courtyard elevation of the coach house (within the stable block). It is believed this is a David Bryce plan and it may be the principal elevation of the farm borrowed the style from that (or vice versa). The estate functioned like a community until the 1920s. The Tennants lost money during the Wall Street Crash and this had a knock on effect, as estate workers lost their job and tied housing. The numbers on the estate swelled again during World War II, when 48 landgirls came (4 married Glen men and never left). Listed as a good example of a range of farm steading buildings within an intact later 19th century estate (other estate buildings are listed separately).

External Links

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