Description

Dated 1873. 2 single storey and attic attached cottages forming L-plan cottage orné. Predominantly squared and snecked tooled sandstone. Overhanging eaves. Droved chamfered window and door openings.

W (PRINCIPAL ELEVATION): (No 18) gabled porch in low wing to left with 1873 datestone. 4 bays to right.

S ELEVATION: (Nos 18 and 19) half-hipped 2-bay end gable to left (No 18); 2 bays recessed to right with further low recessed wing to far right with entrance door (No 19).

N ELEVATION: (No 19) 4-bay with low recessed wing containing lavatory, outhouse, coal cellar and doorway to garden.

Modern replacement lattice-effect glazing to No 18. No 19 original leaded lattice glazing (except S elevation, window to right of end gable) and only surviving blind lattice window, previously common to all cottages. Modern entrance door to No 18. Original plain timber boarded door to No 19 (S elevation). Graded grey slates. Gable end stack to N, ridge stack at junction between 18 and 19.

INTERIOR: No 18 modernised. No 19 exceptional, best preserved of Muirhouses cottages. Original floor plan still extant. Entrance door on S elevation leads into flagged passageway, entrance to cottage to the left, to garden straight ahead, and to coal cellar on right. Simple timber door with latch into cottage. Passageway leads to scullery (now kitchen), narrow pantry (now lavatory), further room opposite with 4-panel door, and kitchen at end (now sitting room, range replaced by gas fire). Kitchen has two bed recesses and original shutters. Doors simple boarded timber.

BOUNDARY WALLS: to W, coping stones of boundary wall with timber fence above.

Statement of Interest

No 19 is the best preserved of the Carriden Cottages.

Nos 1-8 Hope Cottages, 18-20 Carriden Brae, Carriden Cottage, The Library House and Old Schoolhouse and The Old School House were all built as a model village for the Carriden Estate workers by Admiral Sir James Hope of Carriden (1808-81). The picturesque cottages are well designed and carefully executed and are resolutely English cottage orné in style with their lattice windows and hipped roofs. They were designed with large gardens and at one time had stone pig stys in the garden. Each cottage had its own well with a handpump in the scullery. The cottages all had a blind lattice window ('to keep the devil away' as local folklore had it), of which No 19 is the only one to retain this feature. The floor plan of No 19 may be taken as close to what the other cottages were originally like. No 19's scullery originally housed a boiler for laundry and a mangle. Some of the cottages had a floored attic.

Admiral and Lady Hope were committed teetotallers and it is likely that they provided the Library House and large gardens to occupy their workers and distract them from public houses.

Part of a B-group with Old Schoolhouse, The Old School House, The Library House, 1-8 Hope Cottages, 20 Carriden Brae and Carriden Cottage.

External Links

• Historic Environment Scotland Listing
• Wikidata Q17816106

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
• 
  Yorkshire West Riding: Leeds, Bradford and the North (Pevsner Architectural Guides / Buildings of England)
• 
  [(Cumberland and Westmorland)] [By (author) Nikolaus Pevsner] published on (January, 1967)
• 
  Berkshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  This Old House: Restoring, Rehabilitating, and Renovating an Older House
• 
  Sussex: East with Brighton and Hove (Buildings of England) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)