Standing Building Recording

Date March 2011 - June 2012

Event ID 993331

Category Recording

Type Standing Building Recording

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/993331

NT 05212 67663 A historic building survey was undertaken, March 2011 – June 2012, of Howden House, a Category B listed building built in c1770. The main three-storey block has five bays and two-storey wings on each end. The exterior is harled and the windows have raised margins. The main entrance on the S-facing elevation includes an ionic porch. The rear N-facing elevation has four bays with an off-centre window lighting the rear staircase. The interior of the building has largely been stripped of its principal fixtures and fittings. The RCAHMS record (NT06NE 52) mentions the potential presence of an earlier tower inside the present building, but offers no information on its location. The existing ground and first floors both have a wall that is >2.5m thick, which is unusually large for an 18th-century building and this wall may well represent the original reused remains of an earlier 15th- or 16th-century tower.

The survey showed that the building has undergone a number of major developmental phases. The building was recorded on a room-by-room basis and the results confirm that a great deal of modification, remodelling and repair work has been carried out over the last 242 years. Most of the period features have been removed with only the early 19th-century main stair surviving. The E and W wings were major additions constructed shortly after the main core block. The E wing was a single storey structure that was heightened at an unknown date. The two-storey W wing was built in a single phase. Much of the current footprint of the building has not altered radically since the early to mid-19th century. Minor 20th-century additions include electrical switch gear, most of the fireplaces (with the exception of the 2nd floor) and the concrete staircase in the E wing. Numerous new doorways surrounded by brickwork form part of these later additions.

Archive: RCAHMS

Funder: EMA Architecture and Design Ltd (on behalf of Planview Ltd)

Gary Savory, CFA Archaeology Ltd

Mike Cressey,

2012