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Summary

Description

Attributed to Thomas Hamilton, circa 1840. 2-storey over basement, 3-bay, almost square-plan, Tudor style house. Cream squared, coursed and stuggesd sandstone rubble, ashlar porch, canted bays, base course and dressings. Eaves course, bipartite windows with finialled dormerheads, bipartite and tripartite windows with chamfered moulded architraves, hoodmoulds or cornices to S (entrance) W and E elevations, bracketted cills with bolection moulding to S and W elevations, raised angle margins.

S (ENTRANCE) ELEVATION: 3-bay; taller gabled and finialled bay advanced to left with lower 2-bay to right, projecting porch in re-entrant angle, flight of 6-steps flanked by tapering dies, moulded architrave to porch entrance, hoodmould, corners with octagonal panelled columns, clustered consoles as capitals, frieze, dentilled cornice, balustraded parapet, panelled pedestals with ball finials at corners, round-headed window in right return; doorpiece with moulded architrave, flanked by narrow lights, fan-light, fielded panelled door. Very small window to right, bipartite window far right, canted bay window with blocking course to left. Dormerheaded bipartites over porch (rendered and lined) and to right, tripartite window to left.

W (SIDE) ELEVATION: mirror image of S elevation, with corniced bipartite windows to 2-bays at ground to right, dormerheads above. Canted window to basement and ground at left, tripartite window above.

N (REAR) ELEVATION: 3-bays; advanced gabled bay to left with door and window to basement, bipartite window at ground and 1st floor; 2-bay wing to right with window to basement and 1st floor, advanced squared bay to far right with 4-light mullioned window at ground, corbelled at 1st with blind bipartite window, blocking course. Single storey over basement L-plan wing to far left, small window in advanced gabled bay, fanlit door with cornce on right return, window to right wing, small window to left (face-ing E) return.

E (SIDE) ELEVATION: 4-bays; taller gabled bay to far left with

corbelled stack at apex, lower single bay link with small windows at ground and 1st floor to right, gabled bay with bipartite windows at ground and 1st far right, E elevation of L-plan to outer right. Taller gabled bay with lead-paned stair window, recessed at centre above link bay.

Variety of glazing patterns, mostly 8-pane sash and case to each light. Grey slate roof, roof light on S elevation, gablet coped skews, moulded and bracketted skewputts, fine display of all corniced and coped sandstone diamond stacks in groups of 2, 4 and 5, moulded cans.

INTERIOR: fine classical decor retained. Central staircase hall, well stair with serpentine cast-iron balusters, triple arcade on 1st floor landing, ceiling with dentil and console cornice, centrepiece of lotus leaves with key pattern border. Study with Adam-style chimneypiece with marine theme motifs. Dining room with console cornice, similar centrepiece to hall, sideboard recess framed by columns similar to porch columns with capitals of eight consoles under a plain abacus, Rococo pelmets, adam-style chimneypiece with marine motifs, frieze moulded

with tiny copperplate initials R and F. Drawing room with part coffered ceiling, centrepiece with acanthus leaves, bracketted cornices over doors.

WALLED GARDEN AND STACK: rubble walls with entrance inscribed 1848 at sides, open-apex pediment cradling ball finial. Chimney stack inside garden with cusped cornice, panels of rampant lions and coroneted roses.

Statement of Special Interest

Bonnytoun House was built for the local distiller Adam Dawson. The villa is attributed by C McWilliam to Thomas Hamilton. Joe Rock (Talbot Rice University Art Gallery) noted that although a certain purity of architecture which is Hamilton's trademark is missing from Bonnytoun there are features which suggest Hamilton in the interior decoration, particularly the doors in round-arched architraves which appears in William Trotter's house in Abercrombie place which is also by Hamilton. the chimneypiece in the dining room was imported from Cowdenhill House, which has been demolished. The initials R and F on the chimneypiece possibly represent those of the manufacturer. A similar chimneypiece is to be found at No 63 High Street, Linlithgow. C McWilliam suggested that the pediment to the entracne of the walled garden was most likely taken from the Town House of Linlithgow whose reconstruction after a fire in 1847 was paid for by Adam Dawson. The chimney in the walled garden appears to have been concocted of left-overs from Dalmeny House.

References

Bibliography

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