Description

James Pearson Alison, 1898. 2-storey and attic, roughly L-plan, gabled, Queen Anne-style villa with gabled, glazed timber porch to front, deep bracketed overhanging eaves, plain bargeboarding, and catslide roof to rear single-storey service wing. Squared, snecked, stugged red sandstone with polished ashlar dressings. Base course. Some stone-mullioned windows; moulded margins; chamfered cills. Pedimented 1st-floor windows breaking eaves.

PRINCIPAL (S) ELEVATION: 3 bays. Advanced, gabled bay to right with canted window at ground floor with decorative parapet bearing blank plaque; tripartite window at 1st floor; bipartite window in apex of gable. Glazed timber porch with stone base in re-entrant angle; tripartite window at ground floor to left; bipartite window with 2-stage pediment breaking eaves above. 2 flat-roofed dormers with small central triangular pediments.

SECONDARY (W) ELEVATION): Symmetrical, gabled. Projecting tripartite windows to left and right at ground, linked by architrave and supporting 1st-floor balcony. Bipartite window with semicircular pediment opening onto balcony at 1st floor. Single lights to left and right at attic.

REAR (N) ELEVATION: Irregular fenestration. Tall, tripartite, mullioned and transomed, round-arched stair window to centre; scrolled cope rising to semicircular-pedimented attic window and wallhead stack above. Semicircular-pedimented window breaking eaves to right. Catslide roof projecting to left, with tripartite flat-roofed dormer to attic.

SIDE (E) ELEVATION: Irregular fenestration, with full-height gable to left, projecting gable to single-storey service wing to right, and slated vertical section of wall between gables.

Predominantly plate glass in timber sash and case windows; small-pane leaded glass to porch; stained glass to stair window; some casement windows to attic. Grey slate roof with metal ridge. Red brick stacks with some short clay cans (see NOTES). Cast-iron rainwater goods.

INTERIOR: Arts and Crafts mosaic floor to porch. Herringbone parquet flooring and dark timber panelling to central hall and to former smoking room. Decorative plaster ceiling and frieze to former drawing room, with Ionic pilasters and egg-and-dart moulding framing inglenook; simple cornices elsewhere. Timber-boarded fitted cupboards to pantry. Some timber panelling around windows. Linenfold carving to 9-panel dark timber doors to principal ground-floor rooms; 4- and 6-panel timber doors elsewhere. 1 cast-iron and several timber chimneypieces. Dark timber panelling to timber stair with fretted balustrade and square newels; dark timber attic stair with turned balusters.

Statement of Interest

A substantially unaltered late-19th-century villa with a striking profile and fine exterior and interior detailing, designed by James Pearson Alison (1862-1932), Hawick's most prominent architect. Alison commenced practice in the town in 1888 and remained there until his death, during which period he was responsible for a large number of buildings of widely varying types and styles, including a considerable proportion of Hawick's listed structures. Ardenlea is particularly unusual in its use of a 'Queen Anne' style that is seldom found in Scotland, and recalls the work of English architects such as Richard Norman Shaw and John James Stevenson.

Ardenlea was built for T H Armstrong. The original plans and drawings show that the house had grouped barley-twist chimneystacks, similar to those of the near-contemporary Wilton Church Hall (also listed), also designed by Alison; only their octagonal bases now remain at Ardenlea. The drawings also show that the first-floor balcony on the west elevation originally had (or was intended to have) a balustraded parapet.

For a time the house was used as an annexe to the adjacent Kirklands Hotel, for which purpose bathrooms were installed in the former dressing rooms and other service areas off the first-floor bedrooms. Besides these minor alterations, and the removal of some fireplaces, there have been no other significant changes to the interior.

External Links

• Historic Environment Scotland Listing
• Wikidata Q77781136

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.

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