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Field Visit
Date June 1984
Event ID 1083057
Category Recording
Type Field Visit
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1083057
This circular dovecot stands on a hillock which in the 18thcentury marked the NW end of the 'Oak Walk', terminating a vista of 1.3km from the site of the future Garden Bridge(No. 267). It was designed by Roger Morris in 1747 and completed in the following year by the mason William Douglas at a cost of about £53, the superintending architect being William Adam (en.1). Robert Mylne in 1776 prepared various designs for the addition of an encircling colonnade and external dome, to give it the appearance of a peripteral temple, but these were not carried out (en.2).
The building, which conforms closely to Morris's original drawing (en.3) is 6.3m in diameter over walls 1.3m thick, and rises to a total height of 15.1m, the height to eaves-level being 9.3m. It is built of harled rubble masonry, but schist ashlar is used for the base- and eaves-courses, a projecting band at first-floor level, the cupola and the surround of the ground-floor doorway. This 'rustick door' was designed by Morris with alternate long-and-short rybats, as built, and with a flat voussoired arch, but the latter was executed as a lintel with anupper block simulating the stepped outline of a high keystone and flanking voussoirs.
This doorway, which faces SE down the line of the vanished avenue, gives access to a room vaulted with a shallow dome and formerly provided with two windows and a fireplace, all of which are now blocked. At first-floor level there are three tall 'blank windows', and in the NW sector a plain doorway into the dovecot proper, which is lined with410 square slab-built nesting-boxes in eleven tiers. The upperpart of the dovecot, which does not appear to have been floored separately, is lit by four window-openings with shallow segmental rear-arches, and is roofed with a steep domed vault penetrated by a 1m circular opening into the cupola.
Morris's drawing shows the conical exterior of the roof covered with five overlapping tiers of stone slabs, but it is now slated. The cylindrical drum containing the pigeon-openings was originally to be covered by a small conical roof of similar form. Its replacement by a domed cupola with central ball-finial probably accounted for the major part of the £5 paid in 1748 for additional work beyond the contract price (en.4*). Two of the four windows in the drum retain their filling-slabs, pierced by two tiers of three round-headed openings and having external perches below each tier.
RCAHMS 1992, visited June 1984
