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Field Visit
Date 18 February 1921
Event ID 1115362
Category Recording
Type Field Visit
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1115362
Inveresk Lodge.
Inveresk Lodge is situated at the south-eastern end of the village of Inveresk, on the south-west side of the highway. The earliest portion of the house dates from 1683, and the whole was completed before 1700. The nucleus was an L-planned structure, comprising a main block, 25 feet broad and 55 feet long, of two storeys and a garret in height, with a wing two storeys, an attic, and a garret in height and 21 feet wide, that projects 15 ½ feet westwards in alignment with the south-east gable. Within the re-entrant angle, which opens to the north, is a semi-octagonal tower containing a turnpike. Shortly after its completion the wing was extended to the north-western boundary of the feu, and from this extension a low range of stabling was run up parallel to the main block; buildings thus enclosed three sides of a courtyard shut off from the road by a boundary wall. Within the re-entrant angle formed by the stair tower and the extension an outbuilding was added in modern times. South-west of the house is a terrace that was at one time occupied by offices, but these, with the exception of two subterranean vaulted cellars, have been removed. The extension of the wing has also been cutback 7 ½ feet; at its present termination the north-east wall has an almost imperceptible swelling, which is all that now denotes the turret stair which formerly rose from the first floor to the garret.
The masonry is of rubble and is rough-cast; the windows have dressed and back-set margins, which in the earlier work are moulded with an edge-roll and quirk, and in the later work chamfered at the arris; the window in the stair tower above the entrance is dated 1683. The attic floor is lit by a series of close-set dormers. The gables are crow-stepped.
The entrance is at the stair foot in the north eastern wall of the tower; the adjoining entrance is a transformed window; the wrought iron knocker, hinges and lock date from the 18th century at latest.
The internal arrangements have been entirely modernised, but the present smoking-room, which lies on the ground floor between the dining- and drawing-rooms, is much in its original state. Its walls are panelled in oak after the early 18th-century mode; behind the panelling was a plaster ground decorated in black or dark grey paint, and on this, while still soft, the plasterer incised the date 1704; the panelling is therefore subsequent to that time.
RCAHMS 1929, visited 18 February 1921.
OS map: Edinburgh iv S.E. (unnoted).
