Description

William Burn, mid 19th century. 2-storey, 3-bay, L-plan farmhouse (arranged as square plan farmhouse with 2-storey, gabled wing to NE) with 2 single storey, late 20th century, flat-roofed extensions to N. Collection of farm buildings to NW; single storey, square-plan, multi-gabled adjoining range of barns and cartsheds (principal gabled elevation to S); further stand-alone barn to left. Snecked and coursed, stugged and squared rubble to farmhouse; long and short stugged ashlar quoins with polished strips; lugged and tabbed, stugged ashlar surrounds to openings with ashlar mullions; polished, splayed margins; plain, projecting eaves cornice with rounded stone corbels; overhanging, timber bracketed eaves with plain bargeboards. Snecked and coursed, stugged and squared rubble to barns and cartsheds principal elevation, random rubble to sides and rear, sandstone ashlar dressings.

FARMHOUSE, S (PRINCIPAL) ELEVATION: 3 bays, symmetrical. Recessed central entrance bay, timber boarded and glazed lean-to porch with plain side lights and fanlight, gabled breaking eaves dormer above. Flanking wide gabled bays, tripartite ground floor windows; bipartite 1st floor windows.

W ELEVATION: 2 bays. Ground floor, bipartite windows to both bays; gabled breaking eaves dormers with bipartite windows to 1st floor. Late 20th century flat-roofed conservatory and garage extensions recessed to left; wide bay (NE wing) further recessed to left.

N ELEVATION: 3-bay, advanced plain gabled elevation. Narrow central bay with flanking gables. Gabled NE wing to left; 2-storey gable end; shallower pitch than main. Late 20th century garage and roughcast conservatory extension to N and W of wing.

E ELEVATION: 4 bays (arranged 2-2). Narrow window at ground floor left, tripartite window to right, 2 windows (widened in late 20th century) to far right. Bipartite breaking eaves dormer to centre, 2 breaking eaves dormers further to right. Single storey, brick lean-to garage extension to far right.

FARM BUILDINGS: 4-bay cartshed and barn range; 2 segmentally- arched cartshed openings to central bays, ashlar voussoirs. Large, square opening to far left, steel lintel; 2 small, narrow windows to far right. Concrete skews to gables. Later metal lean-to shelter to W elevation. Single rectangular-plan barn to E; 2 single openings to ground floor, single, central opening to loft. Pitched roofs; grey slate; cat-slide vents; some cast-iron roof-lights.

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Predominantly PVCu look-a-like windows. H-plan pitched, grey slate roof; grey slate to dormers. Tall, corniced and shouldered ashlar stack to E and W ridges, with indented corners; circular clay cans. Smaller, rectangular gablehead stacks to NE corner and N wing.

Statement of Interest

Gavinburn Farm is a historic and well-preserved farm, located in a prominent position on the north side of the Clyde estuary, on the bottom slopes of the Kilpatrick Braes. The farmhouse and main farm buildings appear to have been virtually unchanged since the 1st Ordnance Survey survey in 1860, but the name of Gavinburn is known to date back to 1777, when it is marked on Charles Ross's map of the Shire of Dunbarton. The farm is located within the estate of Lord Blantyre, whose ancenstral seat, Erskine House (see separate listing) sits on the opposite side of the River Clyde overlooking the Kilpatrick Braes. The farmhouse demonstrates the common estate style found at Erskine in many buildings attributed to William Burn. Burn had trained in the office of Sir Robert Smirke (architect of Erskine House), and had previously designed the Blantyre Obelisk for the Estate in 1831. The farmhouse shares its distinctive rounded stone corbel eaves-course with the Stables, Kennels, Piggery and several estate cottages in the grounds of Erskine House (see separate listings), and also Gavinburn Cottages and Hole Cottage in the immediate vicinity of the farm itself. The farmhouse appears to have been first planned as a square, with the wing to the NE being added not long after, as the house appears as an L-plan on the 1st edition Ordnance Survey map of 1860. This pre-1860 date suggests that the farm may have been built within the same building campaign that produced the estate buildings at Erskine, with the Stables and Piggery dating from 1856 and the Kennels, circa 1860.

Gavinburn Farm lies within the amenity zone for the Antonine Wall recommended in D N Skinner The Countryside of the Antonine Wall (1973), and which will form the basis of the buffer zone, yet to be defined, for the proposed Antonine Wall World Heritage Site.

External Links

• Historic Environment Scotland Listing
• Wikidata Q77777851

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

• 
  Oxfordshire: North and West (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Wiltshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Listed Buildings and Other Heritage Assets
• 
  Northumberland (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Old House Handbook 2 Books Bundle Collection (Old House Handbook: A Practical Guide to Care and Repair,Old House Eco Handbook: A Practical Guide to Retrofitting for Energy-Efficiency & Sustainability)
• 
  A Buying and Owning a Listed Building: A Brief Guide