Description

Alex Cullen, Lochhead & Brown 1909-10. 2-storey, and single-storey and attic, asymmetric, multi-bay, gabled, Arts and Crafts manor house with Scots Renaissance details and elaborately carved entrance door surround. Painted harl with exposed stone margins and ashlar components. Base course. Ashlar to gableheads. Some pedimented dormers breaking wallhead. Some bipartite and 4-light windows with bare stone mullions. Ashlar panels with ropework moulded border linking ground and 1st floor windows to W. Later flat-roofed extension to NE.

FURTHER DESCRIPTION: ENTRANCE ELEVATION TO N: 8 bays. Off-centre, advanced, balustraded entrance bay with deeply recessed 2-leaf panelled and carved timber doors set into chamfered round-arch. Elaborately carved hoodmoulding above and carved panel to blank shield above.

GARDEN ELEVATION TO S: 8-bays. 5-bays to left with central balustraded bowed ashlar window to ground. Outer bays with canted bay windows with parapet to upper storey. Bowed oriel window to far right.

Predominantly 6-pane over plate glass timber sash and case windows. Grey slates. Raised skews with some scrolled skewputts. Tall, wallhead stacks. Cast-iron rainwater goods with some decorative hoppers.

INTERIOR: (seen 2008). Good, decorative interior with original room plan largely extant. Timber panelled hall with dominant moulded stone fire surround and chimney. Straight staircase with timber screens. Highly decorative plasterwork to some public rooms. Panelled timber doors. Some simple cornicing to bedrooms.

Statement of Interest

This distinctive manor house with Arts and Crafts details and particularly fine door surround was designed by the well-known architect Alexander Cullen and is a good example of an early 20th century manor house. The contrasting painted harl and bare stone margins provides an effective decorative device. The decorative interior retains much of its original form and the panelled hall is notable.

The house was designed for Hugh Neilson, the owner of Summerlee Iron Company in Coatbridge and it replaced a previous 19th century house which lay to its South West. The old house was demolished. It is possible that there was an earlier chapel near this site although no remains of this exist.

The Summerlee Iron Works began in 1836 by James Neilston and its production peaked in the 1880s. Thereafter, it declined and closed in 1926. The site is now Summerlee Museum of Industrial Life.

Alex Cullen, Lochhead & Brown were a Hamilton and Glasgow based firm formed from 1908-1911. Cullen had prolific practice with most of his work concentrated in Hamilton, Motherwell and the surrounding area and is known to have designed over 100 buildings in the period between 1888 and his death in 1911. Most of his work was for public buildings such as churches, schools, police stations, hospitals, libraries, offices and public halls, but he also executed a number of domestic commissions, such as here. In 1902, because of his heavy workload, he took on the architects James Lochhead and William Brown as partners. The firm Cullen, Lochhead and Brown was one of the leading practices in Lanarkshire and continued to hold this position after Cullen's death.

External Links

• Historic Environment Scotland Listing
• Wikidata Q77781440

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

• 
  Staffordshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Old House Handbook: A Practical Guide to Care and Repair
• 
  Devon (Pevsner Buildings of England)
• 
  Old House Eco Handbook: A Practical Guide to Retrofitting for Energy-Efficiency & Sustainability
• 
  London 6: Westminster (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England): Westminster v. 6
• 
  Hampshire: South (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)