CAROLSIDE is tucked away in the sheltered valley of the Leader Water as it flows south into the Tweed near Melrose. Descending the present drive from the east, the first glimpse of the house is of a dignified Palladian frontage, five bays wide and three storeys high, with tiers of sash windows and a porch—a later addition—in the centre (Fig 1). Framing this frontage are symmetrical lower wings and behind a lower extension, still Georgian in appearance, but not at all symmetrical.
The history of Carolside and its estate is cloaked in uncertainty, which makes it difficult to be definite about very much of its history at all. That makes one particular architectural insight about the house all the more important: that five-bay centrepiece is clearly derived from Isaac Ware’s design for Chesterfield House, Mayfair, built-in 1748–49 and demolished in 1937. Although now little remembered, this townhouse of the Earls of Chesterfield was greatly admired in its day and its façade also informed the design of Gunsgreen House on the Berwickshire coast at Eyemouth, datable to the early 1750s (COUNTRY LIFE, January 27, 2010). The anonymous architect of the façade at Carolside need not have visited London to see it, as it was extensively illustrated in Ware’s massive tome A Complete Body of Architecture (Fig 2), published in 1756–57, which exercised notable influence north of the Border.
Esta historia es de la edición December 09, 2020 de Country Life UK.
Comience su prueba gratuita de Magzter GOLD de 7 días para acceder a miles de historias premium seleccionadas y a más de 9,000 revistas y periódicos.
Ya eres suscriptor ? Conectar
Esta historia es de la edición December 09, 2020 de Country Life UK.
Comience su prueba gratuita de Magzter GOLD de 7 días para acceder a miles de historias premium seleccionadas y a más de 9,000 revistas y periódicos.
Ya eres suscriptor? Conectar
Happiness in small things
Putting life into perspective and forces of nature in farming
Colour vision
In an eye-baffling arrangement of geometric shapes, a sinister-looking clown and a little girl, Test Card F is one of television’s most enduring images, says Rob Crossan
'Without fever there is no creation'
Three of the top 10 operas performed worldwide are by the emotionally volatile Italian composer Giacomo Puccini, who died a century ago. Henrietta Bredin explains how his colourful life influenced his melodramatic plot lines
The colour revolution
Toxic, dull or fast-fading pigments had long made it tricky for artists to paint verdant scenes, but the 19th century ushered in a viridescent explosion of waterlili
Bullace for you
The distinction between plums, damsons and bullaces is sweetly subtle, boiling down to flavour and aesthetics, but don’t eat the stones, warns John Wright
Lights, camera, action!
Three remarkable country houses, two of which have links to the film industry, the other the setting for a top-class croquet tournament, are anything but ordinary
I was on fire for you, where did you go?
In Iceland, a land with no monks or monkeys, our correspondent attempts to master the art of fishing light’ for Salmo salar, by stroking the creases and dimples of the Midfjardara river like the features of a loved one
Bravery bevond belief
A teenager on his gap year who saved a boy and his father from being savaged by a crocodile is one of a host of heroic acts celebrated in a book to mark the 250th anniversary of the Royal Humane Society, says its author Rupert Uloth
Let's get to the bottom of this
Discovering a well on your property can be viewed as a blessing or a curse, but all's well that ends well, says Deborah Nicholls-Lee, as she examines the benefits of a personal water supply
Sing on, sweet bird
An essential component of our emotional relationship with the landscape, the mellifluous song of a thrush shapes the very foundation of human happiness, notes Mark Cocker, as he takes a closer look at this diverse family of birds