A Modernist house created throughout the Nineteen Sixties inside the walled lawn of a ancient residence stylishly blends the fresh and the ancient. Mary Miers experiences; pictures by means of Paul Highnam for Nation Lifestyles.
Cloistered within the walled lawn at Leuchie close to North Berwick — the house of Sir Hew and Girl Dalrymple and circle of relatives — is certainly one of a fascinating grasp of Mid-Century Trendy designs that had been built-in into the lawn constructions of a ancient residence. The gang, which contains Trevor Dannatt’s Pitcorthie in Fife of 1968, the walled lawn homes at Hurley, Berkshire (Walter Goddard, 1956) and in Henley-on-Thames (Francis Pollen,1959), and Pollen’s 1976 Lake Space on The Grange property in Hampshire, drew inspiration from vernacular resources, blending herbal and manufactured fabrics in unpretentious, sparsely crafted designs.
Leuchie Walled Lawn and its Georgian predecessor (Leuchie Space, these days a respite house) had been described by means of Mark Girouard in two articles revealed the 12 months after the Trendy residence used to be constructed (Nation Lifestyles, October 12 and 26, 1961). Six a long time later, the tale has been enriched in different techniques: the architect Sir James Dunbar-Nasmith lately shared recollections of the fee, his first main residence challenge, and ultimate 12 months, Robert Dalrymple revealed an affectionate account of rising up right here within the Nineteen Sixties. In 2020, Grey Macpherson Architects finished a delicate remodelling in collaboration with the prevailing homeowners, Sir Hew Dalrymple, and his spouse, Janey, who has up to date the interiors to fit the home’s new function as a classy vacation let. With this new bankruptcy within the tale of Leuchie, it appeared well timed to revisit.
Fig 1: The corridor with a portrait of the 4th Baronet (1774–1834), attributed to Sir William Beechey, set into panelling modelled on a Fifties design for Turnhouse Airport. Leuchie Walled Lawn, East Lothian. ©Paul Highnam for Nation Lifestyles.
The Dalrymples had been attached with North Berwick since 1694, when Hew Dalrymple (1652–1737), scion of a formidable felony and political circle of relatives, purchased land right here, flush together with his luck as a attorney. In 1698, the 12 months he succeeded his father, the first Viscount Stair, as Lord President of the Courtroom of Consultation, he used to be created a baronet. Over the following couple of a long time, he enlarged his property to a few,000 acres, purchasing up the lands of Tantallon and Leuchie, in addition to the Bass Rock, which he united beneath the brand new Barony of North Berwick.
Leuchie Space dates from 1779–85 and used to be constructed by means of the 2d Baronet, who had inherited from his grandfather in 1737. Having been an MP most commonly based totally in London, by means of the 1770s, the second one Sir Hew used to be in his sixties and spending extra time in East Lothian, planting his acres and taking part in rural interests. As he wrote to a pal, the sooner residence used to be rotten and he resolved to tug it down and construct ‘a good habitation appropriate to my beginning rank and fortune’. The end result used to be a sensible nation residence, a drawing of which is prominently displayed in his portrait by means of David Martin of 1789. He died the next 12 months and his son, the third Sir Hew, added Hamilton to his surname on inheriting Bargany in Ayrshire in 1796.
Fig 2: The home is constructed towards the outdated lawn wall. The pediment-like construction conceals the roof of the gardener’s cottage. Leuchie Walled Lawn, East Lothian. ©Paul Highnam for Nation Lifestyles.
By way of the Nineteen Twenties, the Melancholy and demise tasks had taken their toll and far of the property needed to be offered. By the point the ninth Baronet died, in 1959, the home, which had got really extensive Victorian additions, appeared an impractical house for both his widow or their son. The tenth Sir Hew used to be within the military and had already been searching for someplace appropriate at the property for circle of relatives vacations. When he and his spouse took Sir James to peer the 18th-century walled lawn, the architect used to be ‘greatly surprised’.
The five-acre enclosure is split by means of a longitudinal wall — to the south lies the bigger vegetable lawn; to its north, the excitement lawn, covered with outdated fruit bushes and with a sheltered, west-facing web page. The brand new residence used to be finished in 1960 and, two years later, it turned into the couple’s everlasting place of dwelling when Sir Hew returned house and joined Scottish & Newcastle Breweries.
Sir James used to be then a emerging megastar from the administrative center of Sir Robert Matthew who, together with his colleague Graham Legislation, had lately arrange Legislation & Dunbar-Nasmith Architects (these days, LDN Architects), which might turn into certainly one of Scotland’s main practices, very best identified for its fresh theatre structures and conservation paintings. Now retired elderly 95, he obviously remembers that Leuchie used to be Activity 14 and certainly one of his happiest commissions.
Fig 3: The terrace with a bust by means of Thomas Campbell of Jane Duncan, spouse of the 4th Sir Hew, who rebuilt the walled lawn in 1809. Leuchie Walled Lawn, East Lothian. ©Paul Highnam for Nation Lifestyles.
The luck of the challenge owed a lot to the agree with and non-interference of his purchasers. Having made it transparent that they meant to fill their new house with the inherited artwork and furnishings from Leuchie Space, they’d just one request: they sought after it to be a ‘in point of fact trendy residence’. This, as their son Robert would later replicate, ‘turns out at odds with the traditionalists we knew’.
Key to the design used to be the lawn wall, remodelled in about 1809, allegedly by means of Napoleonic prisoners-of-war. ‘I used to be worried to restrict the rest I did to the ancient construction to an absolute minimal,’ the architect stresses. The principle lawn vary is enclosed on 3 facets by means of the outdated partitions, the east segment — with 3 holes punched thru — serving as a backbone that separates the home’s two very other faces. There are not any splayed wings or bowed ends, as Sir James’s hero Basil Spence would possibly have proposed in a nod to Georgian Leuchie. As a substitute, the modestly scaled residence consists of low-slung, horizontal containers, their swish glass and white-rendered partitions set towards the weathered brickwork in some way that also feels bold. ‘A flat roof tells you completely not anything in regards to the measurement of a residence when seen from a distance,’ Sir James observes of the cover that oversails the central segment and a part of the decrease wings. The flatness of the home, he explains, used to be dictated by means of the prevailing flat-topped gable that sweeps as much as disguise the gardener’s cottage abutting at the different aspect (Fig 2).
Fig 4: A floating bookcase around the drawing room’s west wall. Leuchie Walled Lawn, East Lothian. ©Paul Highnam for Nation Lifestyles.
Relationship from the 18th century, the cottage turned into the kitchen/nursery wing, its little-altered external atmosphere the understated tone of the doorway entrance. Handiest on passing in the course of the entrance door pierced into the lawn wall to its south is the Trendy vary printed.
The internal balances outdated and new in in a similar way unexpected techniques. The place different homes of the length had been open plan and sparely furnished with Continental Trendy furnishings, Leuchie mirrored its homeowners’ conventional way of life in conventionally designated rooms full of inherited possessions. But, there is not any feeling of being closed in. The insertion of a clerestorey above the partitions dividing the primary rooms lets in the boarded ceiling to be noticed as a continuing airplane operating in the course of the enfilade, unifying the areas.
The drawing room occupies the whole intensity of the home, its metal and marble hearth set into the lawn wall to proportion the cottage chimney. It isn’t a big room, however the transparency of the lawn entrance makes it really feel spacious and floods it with gentle. Ingenious main points come with the floating bookcase that runs around the west window, concealing air flow strips set right into a corresponding trees transom (Fig 4).
The entrance wall of the unique eating room is ready again underneath the roof cover to shape that needful of Mid-Century Trendy homes, the ‘outside room’ (Fig 3). To its north, a slightly sunless open terrace with a pergola endured the interaction of indoor and outside areas, balancing the cast and clear modules with a void. As a part of contemporary alterations, the room has been prolonged over the again part of the terrace to create a modern kitchen/lounge (Fig 8).
Fig 5: The previous eating room has been prolonged to create a spacious kitchen/lounge. The girl within the 1730s portrait is unidentified. Leuchie Walled Lawn, East Lothian. ©Paul Highnam for Nation Lifestyles.
The brand new addition is a horizontal white field, sparsely designed to counterbalance the south vary, the place bedrooms, bogs and garage cabinets open off a top-lit passage. In 1964, with a fourth kid at the approach, Girl Anne-Louise Hamilton-Dalrymple requested Sir James to plan a plan for 2 extra bedrooms. The ensuing extension bureaucracy a mezzanine on the south finish, retaining a pedestrian course as a coated approach. Internally, it’s reached by means of a brief stair that ingeniously lifts as much as permit get entry to to garage underneath (Fig 6).
Sir James’s pastime within the high quality and really feel of fabrics is obvious in lots of his structures, the place trees is used creatively in and out. At Leuchie, spruce ceilings, plywood fitted cabinets, ribbed doorways and walls of beech and mahogany, in addition to muninga parquet ground, lend heat and contrasts of texture and color. The corridor panelling — a secret-nailed tongue-and-groove with a particular double curvature — used to be modelled at the design for Edinburgh’s Turnhouse Airport, the place Sir James used to be challenge architect when operating for Matthew within the Fifties.
Fig 6: The bed room passage to the 1965 mezzanine extension. The quick staircase within the distance will also be lifted up like a drawbridge, revealing garage underneath. Leuchie Walled Lawn, East Lothian. ©Paul Highnam for Nation Lifestyles.
As Nation Lifestyles articles of the length illustrate, it used to be no longer atypical for the interiors of Modernist homes to be furnished with antiques. Few, then again, incorporate ancient portraiture with the bravado of Leuchie. When it turned into transparent that there used to be no hope of the partitions being tall sufficient to hold the photographs, the canvases had been merely got rid of from their frames and constructed into the structure. Probably the most spectacular — a full-height 4th Baronet status in scarlet uniform towards a moody sky — makes a grand affect on arrival, a dramatically over-scaled presence within the small, sq. corridor (Fig 1). In different places, three-quarter-length portraits, a few of married {couples} inset as pairs, upload richness to the primary rooms.
In her contemporary guide The See-Thru Space (2020), Shelley Klein tells the tale of the Modernist residence close to Selkirk that Peter Womersley in-built 1957 in collaboration together with her textile-designer father Bernat Klein. She describes how rising up at Top Sunderland used to be like dwelling in a murals and explores the impact that her father’s uncompromising aesthetic had on her formative years. This acclaimed memoir impressed Robert Dalrymple to replicate on his personal upbringing in a ‘flat-roofed bungalow’. As his booklet Outdated Tactics in a New Space finds, the enjoy used to be somewhat other. His oldsters could have been ‘strangely receptive’ to the speculation of Modernism, however their enter into the design used to be minimum and the country-house regime and furniture they imported into their innovative new house remained resolutely outdated.
Fig 7: The brand new eating room within the former nursery, with Isabel Reid’s carved newel publish. Leuchie Walled Lawn, East Lothian. ©Paul Highnam for Nation Lifestyles.
They weren’t atypical, then again, in making a separate zone for the kids and nanny — it’s a stunning function of Modernist homes that the rules of open making plans had been steadily comfy on this regard. At Leuchie, the lawn wall used to be successfully the golf green baize door — in addition to a valid barrier — between adults and kids. Remodelled to house a eating room (Fig 7), the cottage remembers former days within the figures of boys carved into the staircase newel publish by means of sculptor Isabel Reid. It used to be right here, ‘the place no central heating used to be deemed important’, that Nanny, now elderly 96, presided over the satisfied nursery regimen.
After the brothers left house — Hew for a occupation in business, Jock to turn into a clergyman, Robert a guide clothier, William a historian and author — the home remained unchanged. When their oldsters died in 2017 and 2018, it nonetheless had the central heating and servicing that had revolutionised their existence within the Nineteen Sixties.
Fig 8: The brand new kitchen within the former eating room. The portraits are of Sir Hew, Lord Drummore, after Allan Ramsay, and his spouse, Anne Horn, painted by means of John Medina. Leuchie Walled Lawn, East Lothian. ©Paul Highnam for Nation Lifestyles.
The prevailing homeowners, who’ve lived at within sight Blackdykes since 1992 (Nation Lifestyles, January 11, 2007), noticed the letting doable of Leuchie Walled Lawn and set a few cautious renovation. They have got newly rendered, painted and adorned in and out, changed all of the infrastructure, created new bogs and reconfigured components of the plan. With out destroying the spirit of the interiors, Girl Dalrymple has skilfully used color to introduce selection and definition — a Modernist idea missing within the authentic scheme (Fig 5), which used to be white during ‘in order to not detract from the artwork’. She has additionally redesigned a lot of the lawn.
The comfy mix of outdated and new that has been a defining feature of the home since 1960 is a testomony to the flexibility of a mode too steadily regarded as unhomely. It’s honest to mention that no longer all homes of the length have stood the take a look at of time, owing to deficient design or workmanship, however the reverse is correct of Leuchie. The new renovation has demonstrated the phenomenal high quality of this little-known instance of Scottish Modernism and it’s excellent that it could actually now be extra broadly loved.
Consult with www.leuchiewalledgarden.com for extra main points and visiting instances.
Credit score: Tim Graham/Getty Pictures
Methods to profit from certainly one of Scotland’s most pretty islands, by means of Mary Miers.
