Accessing Scotland's Past Project
Event ID 562611
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Accessing Scotland's Past Project
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/562611
Springwood Park House, the centre of the estate, was built in the mid-eighteenth century with considerable alterations made in the 1820s by the architect James Gillespie Graham. These greatly enlarged the house, with extra rooms added to the front of the house as well as a conservatory.
Photographs from the late nineteenth century show an impressive three-storeyed house, built in what appears to be a mixture of coursed rubble and dressed stone. The main entrance had a tall arched porch, built to resemble a 'porte-cochere' a feature which allowed visitors to remain dry in inclement weather when dismounting their carriages.
An interesting feature of Springwood Park House was that the windows on the top floor were about half the size of those on lower floors, also seen at Ednam House in Kelso. At the time when these houses were built, the main rooms of the house where visitors were received were usually found on the ground or first floors and these required the most light. The rooms on the uppermost floor for servants were probably bedrooms.
Text prepared by RCAHMS as part of the Accessing Scotland's Past project
