Description

Thomas Hamilton, 1826; late 19th century wing to SE. 2-storey and attic, 5-bay Tudor country house Baronial stair tower; 2-storey and basement wing. Ashlar with droved and stugged margins. Deep base course, moulded string course and bracketed eaves cornice. Corbels, hoodmoulds with label stops, stone transoms and mullions, chamfered reveals and moulded arrises.

N (PRINCIPAL) ELEVATION: stone porch in bay to left of centre with 2-leaf gothic-traceried door, moulded doorpiece and remains of curvilinear gable (see Notes), 2 windows to right (bay 4 blocked) and 3 windows to 1st floor (centre and left bipartite), 2 small dormers above with shaped windowheads reflecting porch. Advanced gables to outer bays, to left with 6-light transomed window at ground, bipartite at 1st floor and small square window in gablehead; gable to right with full-height rectangular-plan panel incorporating tripartite window at ground and transomed window at 1st floor rising into raised chimney breast incorporating gunloop and surmounted by paired polygonal stack.

W ELEVATION: gabled bay to right of centre with tall, polygonal-roofed, 5-light canted window at ground, bipartite at 1st floor and small window in gablehead; bays to left with similar canted window at ground, 3 windows at 1st floor and 2 segmental-headed dormer windows above.

E ELEVATION: gabled bay to right with 2 windows to each floorand corbelled chimney breast to centre above rising into windowed gable surmounted by paired polygonal stack; conical-roofed tower with small stair windows adjoining at outer left. 2 regularly-fenestrated bays with pedimented dormerheads to right return of lower wing at left.

S ELEVATION: 2 doorways to left at ground (formerly behind conservatory), and 2 windows to 1st floor. Advanced gable to right with rectangular-plan tripartite window below bipartite and small window in gablehead, and 2 further irregularly-fenestrated bays to outer right with lower wing adjoining and projecting beyond. Some small-pane glazing patterns in timber sash and case windows remain; principal ground floor openings blocked. Grey slates. Coped, grouped polygonal ridge and gablehead stacks with cavetto-coped rectangular stacks to wing. Ashlar-coped skews with moulded skewputts.

INTERIOR: not seen 2003. Fine decorative scheme in place (though in poor condition) including plain and decorative plasterwork. Groin-vaulted porch with 2-leaf gothic-traceried door to entrance hall with black slate chimneypiece in stripped Tudor classical manner with overmantel rising into obelisk-topped triangular centrepiece; stone scale-and-platt staircase with decorative cast-iron balusters. Conventional Elizabethan chimneypieces. Porch and drawing room with ribbed ceilings; panelled library. See Notes.

Statement of Interest

Originally known as 'Laurence (or Lawrence) Park', but with both names appearing on a map dated 1922. The Thomas Hamilton attribution comes from a group of drawings exhibited at the Academy in 1828, the group included Cumstoun House with ribbed vaulting to canted window ceilings similar to Lathallan House. Sadly, Hamilton's architect's drawings are lost. Thomas Hamilton and William Burn were the first Scottish members or RIBA, they were elected in 1835. Hamilton is famous as a pioneer of the Greek Revival in Scotland, and his works include The Royal High School, Edinburgh (1825), Cumstoun House (1828) and Falcon Hall, Edinburgh (c1830). Much of the fine detail of Lathallan House has been vandalised, but the present (2003) owner was raised in the house and many of the interior details given above are from his memory of the rooms as they once appeared. The house was purchased, fully furnished, by his step-grandfather for the sum of #5,000.

A photograph at the RCAHMS shows the porch with a segmental-headed panel incorporated into the shaped gable. The Walled Garden, Ivy Cottage and Power House are all listed separately in a B Group with the house.

External Links

• Historic Environment Scotland Listing
• Wikidata Q17816863

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

• 
  The Listed Buildings and Other Principal Structures at the Royal Gunpowder Mills Waltham Abbey
• 
  Historic Environment Law: Planning, Listed Buildings, Monuments, Conservation Areas and Objects, Supplement 2014
• 
  Hampshire: South (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Development and Design of Heritage Sensitive Sites: Strategies for Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas
• 
  Listed Buildings and Other Heritage Assets
• 
  Cork: City and County (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of Ireland)