Corehouse Stable Court Including Gatepiers And Boundary Wall, Lesmahagow, South Lanarkshire

Entry Name: Corehouse Stable Court Including Gatepiers And Boundary Wall

Listing Name: Corehouse Stable Court Including Gatepiers and Boundary Wall

Listing Date: 16 September 2010

Category: B

Source: Historic Scotland

Source ID: 400494

Historic Scotland Designation Reference: LB51596

Building Class: Cultural

ID on this website: 200400494

Location: Lesmahagow

County: South Lanarkshire

Electoral Ward: Clydesdale North

Parish: Lesmahagow

Traditional County: Lanarkshire

Tagged with: Building

Description

Circa 1827-30. Single storey, U-plan, Tudor revival former stable offices comprising 3 main gabled blocks; courtyard enclosed by wall with central gates adjoining gable-ends of blocks to W and E, and enclosed at rear by short section of wall with pedestrian gate to former laundry court. Squared, coursed sandstone with raised polished ashlar dressings and stugged ashlar tabs. Long and short quoins. Chamfered margins to doors windows; some tabbed; some windows with stone mullions.

FURTHER DESCRIPTION: W block with windows to N gable; alternately placed timber-boarded doors and mullioned windows in 4-bays to courtyard elevation; gabled ball-finialled hayloft dormer over central door; piend roofed single storey outshot to S gable. Vehicle shed in S block with two 2-leaf timber-boarded doors. E block with similar arrangement to W in gable and 4-bay courtyard elevations but with carriage doors to courtyard. Fragmentary remains of the former riding school, to W of court.

Small-pane glazing in timber casements to mullioned windows; predominantly 4-pane glazing in timber sash and case windows elsewhere. Ridge stacks with yellow clay cans. Saddle-back skews and kneelered skewputts and ball finials. Graded grey slates with zinc ridges. Cobbled paving sloping towards central drain.

WALLS AND GATEPIERS: roughly coursed rubble walls with roll top saddle-back copes. Square-section gatepiers of stugged ashlar with cornice, moulded capstones and ball finials.

Statement of Interest

The stable court is well detailed and an important visual feature on the approach to the house along the W drive. It is likely to have been part of the programme of new building work undertaken by George Cranstoun, youngest son of William 5th Lord Cranstoun who succeeded to the estate in about 1820 and was raised to the bench as Lord Corehouse in 1826. He employed the eminent English country house architect Edward Blore to rebuild the house. Blore's pioneering use of Tudor Cotswold style at Corehouse was to have a significant impact of the work of William Burn. These stables are significant as part of the historical development of the Corehouse estate which is one of the main components of the Falls of Clyde designated Designed Landscape and contributes to the outstanding scenic qualities of this part of the Clyde valley.

There are a number of details on the stables which suggest the designer was consciously borrowing motifs from the mansion. The bipartite windows with fixed light glazing, the finialled gables and saddle-back skews and lugged skewputts are found on both buildings. Map evidence indicates that they were built at about the same time.

Lord Corehouse sought advice on the improvement of his estate from his friend Sir Walter Scott and it was on Scott's recommendation, through written correspondence, he appointed Edward Blore of London as architect of the house (1824-27). When Scott visited Corehouse in 1827 he said 'Corehouse is at more expense than is necessary, plants too thick and trenches is superfluous. But this is the eagerness of the young artist.' He did not identify the designer but it would seem from his comments that Lord Corehouse may have had a hand in the design of the improvement of his estate.

The stable offices were originally more extensive with a riding school at the W and a laundry court at the rear (S). The doorway in the S wall gave access to the laundry court and the lower building to SW corner beyond the rear wall was perhaps a part of it. The W and N sections of the stable court may have been built at different times (the roof structures suggest this).

Other elements of the Corehouse designed landscape also listed are the Conservatory and Flower Garden Walls, the Mausoleum, the Dovecot and the Stove House (see separate listings).

External Links

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