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Recording Your Heritage Online

Event ID 566302

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Recording Your Heritage Online

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/566302

Gowanbank, 1842-62, Sir James Gowans

James Gowans' seat. Re-casting of a plain, c.1820 farmhouse belonging to the architect's mason-father, Walter Gowans. Extended into a tight U-plan and transformed in character. Plain roof modulated by rows of hungry corbels, tall ashlar chimneystacks and a gradual change in stone from coarse masonry to random rubble. The steading, cartshed, dairy and cottage are in more mature Gowans; panelled façade, the rubble completely variegated, different coloured, each stone in its allotted bed. Chimneys random rubble within panelling. Chamfered corner windows, stone used for stringcourses and other details is not polished ashlar but left rude and hungry. The house at the east end of the byre bears the inscription Heb 111:4 - For every house is builded by some man; but he that built all things is God. Eccles, 11:4 1 August 1862. Gowans' rigorous 2ft module underpins everything. Restored in the 1990s as five houses by William A Cadell & Douglas Davidson

Taken from "West Lothian: An Illustrated Architectural Guide", by Stuart Eydmann, Richard Jaques and Charles McKean, 2008. Published by the Rutland Press http://www.rias.org.uk

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