Auchinbrae
A reinvented summer house at a Baronial house over 4 floors.
A building with rich history
This Baronial house over 4 floors presented boldly to Newark Drive was built in 1887 by architect David Thompson for Queen Victoria’s Furrier Francis Henry Russ, who sadly died from TB 4 years after its completion. A decade later it was purchased by fashion house owner Alexander Henderson who assembled a series of Boucher + Cousland buildings on Glasgow’s Buchanan street into a department store that we know today as House of Fraser.
Mr Henderson made his own mark at Auchinbrae in 1912 and in the spirit of the times, by commissioning the architect JJ Burnett to place a garage for one of the first Rolls Royce motor cars in the best bit of the garden and against a glazed brick south - south west facing Orangery wall.
For as many years as his motor car predated this wonderful garden, perched on the highest 35 m contour of a Pollokshields Drumlin which offers aspect + a panoramic view over the same Queens Park to Cathkin Brae and Bonnyton Moor…. all resonated with its time and ownership. However, thereafter and for probably a century this elaborate garage; built robustly like one of Burnett’s Glasgow banks, sat exactly where any residents would want to be…. Not to mention the Oranges !
First gallery
A fresh approach
Our clients brought us to the project to revisit the back end of the house, to solve how it related to its sunniest and sometimes very wet garden. This we solved. However - amidst that the subject of the dark and remote position of the houses original Kitchen once operated by servants was raised.
The answer upon consideration became clear – “Its time to move the Alexander Henderson Garage to the other side of the Garden. “
Second gallery
A reinvented Summer House
We spent 3 months surveying the entire House and drawing it up by hand in all its detail + in the absence of original Drawings. We then spent from Sep 2023 to May 2024 managing the careful taking down of it - slate by slate, brick by brick, sand stone by sand stone, timber by timber.
We then reinvented it as a Summer House – Exactly 25 m west of where it had been since 1912.
Although not what we were originally asked to do. This heavy adjustment to arrangements liberated the majestic 18m long Orangery wall, which we have extensively repaired and secured.
The wall now allows for reversal of the aspect of primary house functions from North and street side to garden facing.
The next step is for the new kitchen and dining functions to take a walk south and appear in a 21st century guise in a sunny relationship to the missing Orangery.