North Queensferry, St Margaret's Hope, Gate-lodge

NT18SW 217.01 12487 81074

See also NT18SW 217.04 (Gate Piers).

St Margaret's Hope Gate Lodge was recorded as part of the Threatened Buildings Survey of St Margaret's Hope on 30 March 2022. The gate lodge is now separated from St Margaret's Hope by the northern approach to the Queensferry Crossing. The Gate lodge was built in 1829 and enlarged in 1916 when St Margaret's Hope became Admiralty House, the residence of Rosyth Naval Commander. Ernest Newton was the architect of the 1916 alterations. The gate lodge at the time of survey was empty and boarded up.

1829; enlarged 1916, Ernest Newton. 2-storey and part single storey gatelodge of 3 telescoping blocks stepping down to N on fall of ground. Rendered; painted ashlar margins, cills and quoins; stone cills; band course at 2-storey blocks. Open pedimented gables; ornamental timber porches to entrance doors.

W (ENTRANCE) ELEVATION: 5 bays grouped 2-2-1 (single storey block to left; 2, 2-storey blocks to right). Single storey piended block to left, 2 windows. Central block with 2-leaf timber boarded door and ornamental timber porch with chevron-banded bargeboards and pendant finial to right, bipartite window to left. Small 1st floor window above door, bipartite window to left. Advanced single bay to right; bipartite windows at ground and 1st floors.

S ELEVATION: open pedimented plain gable. Timber boarded door and ornamental timber porch with chevron banded bargeboards, pendant finial and open lattice sides at 1st floor, formerly opening on to elevated ground near entrance gates (access now blocked).

E (ROADSIDE) ELEVATION: recessed single bay to left; bipartite windows at ground and 1st floors. 2-storey flat-roof extension to right; single windows to left and right returns. 1st floor bipartite window to right of extension. Single storey piended block to far right, central bipartite window.

N ELEVATION: plain wallhead.

B– with St Margaret's Hope (see separate listing). St Margaret's Hope is a small bay between Rosyth Castle and Long Craig. The site, on a steep hill, overlooks the Forth to the SW. This bay is known to be the place where St Margaret, future wife of King Malcolm of Canmore (1058-93) landed with her brother Edgar Atheling and her sister Catherine in 1069 on her journey to Dunfermline from Orkney. The land was acquired from the Guildry of Dunfermline in 1825 by Elias Cathcart of Auchindrane, who built the earlier house on the site in or soon after 1829, calling it St Margaret's. This early house, known today as St Margaret's Hope, was enlarged significantly by Ernest Newton (1856-1922) (see separate listing) and it is particularly his involvement which accounts for the category B, as an architect of national significance. The house passed to Captain William Elder in 1855 and subsequently to his inheritors; it was later acquired by the Admiralty for the Commander in Chief, Coast of Scotland in 1916, at which time Newton was employed. St Margaret's Hope was known as Admiralty House during WWI. The house remained the residence of the Rosyth Naval Commander until 1996, when it was handed over to the Scottish Executive and then leased out to a private company, Universal Steels. The gatelodge formerly consisted of two dwellings which were amalgamated at the same time the house was extended in 1916. The gates are contemporary to the construction of the first house in 1829 but were also modified in 1916.