Description

James B Dunn, 1903 and 1919. Large 2-storey and attic, 5-bay, roughly L-plan, asymmetrical gabled Arts and Crafts villa with bowed entrance stair tower to re-entrant angle and mullioned boxed windows, prominently sited on steep ground overlooking the town. Rendered with smooth sandstone margins to boxed windows and corniced door surround. 4-light windows to gables and small asymmetrically placed windows to stair and section to right. Later mansard roof addition to rear.

Square-pane leaded windows to principal elevations, 6- over 2-pane timber sash and case and small 4-pane casements elsewhere; rooflights. Oak entrance door with cast-iron rivets and wrought-iron pull door bell.

Small green slates to roof; sweeping overhanging eaves. Tall tapered eaves and ridge stacks with plain clay cans. Cast-iron rainwater goods with some lead hoppers and square section downpipes.

INTERIOR: panelled reception hall with integral chimneypiece with delft tiles and copper hood and linked bench seating to sides. Plaster apple blossom frieze. Wide turned timber stair with arched details, fretwork balustrade and carved lion newel post. Timber-panelled drawing room with heavy ornate cornice and large oval ceiling rose. Fitted glazed timber display cabinets. 3 Rooms with parquet floors. Long corridor to upper floor with bedrooms leading off, some with delft tiled chimneypieces. Cloakroom with white glazed brick tiles & original 'Deluge' W.C. Plain timber stair to attic rooms.

BOUNDARY WALLS AND ANCILLARY STRUCTURES: buttressed whinstone retaining walls forming garden terrace with curved ends, sandstone copes and part opened balustrade; central steps with ball finials. Angled entrance steps to front door. Tall snecked whinstone boundary walls with sandstone copes and round capped gatepiers. Brick based timber greenhouse to raised ground to rear linked to wall with ancillary garden structures behind.

Statement of Interest

The Pines is a fine Arts and Crafts Villa designed by James B Dunn (1861-1930) of the prominent Edinburgh firm Dunn & Findlay. The villa has a distinctive prominent elevation overlooking the town and the interior retains its very high quality original decorative scheme including a panelled reception hall with fireplace and integral seating and some fine plasterwork by the Peebles firm Grandison and Sons.

The Pines was commissioned by Sir Henry Ballantyne of Caerlee Mill as a wedding gift to one of his children; the house has commanding views to the East over the town and Caerlee Mill itself. An additional gabled servant's wing was added to the N shortly after it was built. This wing is distinguished from the original house by its small asymmetrically placed window pattern. Internally it has a split staircase leading to the maid's room on one side and the main bedroom corridor to the other (evidence of an earlier servants stair survives in the main house in a kitchen cupboard).

This is the only villa of this architectural style and quality in the town and it is complemented by the smaller adjacent villa Tiendside (see separate listing).

External Links

• Historic Environment Scotland Listing
• Wikidata Q17836054

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

• 
  Department for Communities Listed Historic Buildings of Northern Ireland: Information Guide for the 2nd Survey of Historic Buildings
• 
  Wiltshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Berkshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  This Old House: Restoring, Rehabilitating, and Renovating an Older House
• 
  Listed Buildings, Conservation Areas and Monuments
• 
  Cornwall (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)