Woodhouselee

NT26SW 4.06 2370 6450

The designed landscape surrounding the mansion house at Woodhouselee (NT26SW 4.00) was never very large and its full extent is probably depicted on the 1st edition of the OS 6-inch map (Edinburghshire 1854, sheet 12). The house stood on the S side of an un-named stream, its wooded banks forming the N side of the policies, and the lower, wooded slopes of Woodhouselee Hill the W side. To the E and S the policies were defined by shelter-belts enclosing improved fields and parkland.

Most of the elements of the designed landscape still survive, though the deciduous woodland on the N has largely been replaced by conifers. Of the features depicted within the policies on the 1st edition of the map, nothing is now visible of a summer-house (CDTA05 237), which stood in the SW corner of the polices, and its site is now obscured by a heavy cover of rhododendron. Two pedestals (CDTA05 2, 238) are shown close to the NW corner of the policies, but only one (CDTA05 2) survives, standing in woodland, its E face inscribed with ancient Greek text and the W with Latin. Nothing is now visible of the footbridge (CDTA05 239) that crossed the stream about 20m N of this pedestal.

None of these features are subsequently shown on the 2nd edition of the map (Edinburgh 1895, sheet VII.SE). The Fraser Tytler Memorial (NT26SW 39), which stands in the SW corner of the policies, was erected in 1893, the year after the survey for the 2nd edition map. The only other structure now visible within the former policies is some form of wooden building, the collapsed remains of which lie in the corner of a paddock about 100m E of the memorial.

(CDTA05 2, 113, 237, 238, 239)

Visited by RCAHMS (AGCH) 23 May 2005.