MEMBERS AREA
CASEWORK
East Lothian
till meeting in one another’s
houses, the panel considered 473
cases at its fortnightly meetings
last year. As each of us have links with
many interest groups in the county, our
communal activities extended mainly to
site meetings and our traditional
Christmas-tide lunch. The cases which
we were most concerned about were
not necessarily those with which we
had most success.
S
Adam Paterson Mill, Haddington
When fire had destroyed much of the
works at the West Mills site, it was
zoned for housing while retaining the
handsome category B listed four-storey
stone Adam Paterson Mill. The mill was
built in the early 19th century, on the
north bank of the mill lade, facing
outward at the eastern end of the site.
It was separated from its power source
(presumably a powerful steam-driven
mill-engine in the surviving
contemporary stone Engine House), on
the south side of the lade, with a
horizontal drive-shaft raised above the
lade, extending into the mill, protected
by a wing wall linking the two buildings,
and bridging the lade. The engine
house, the tall chimney stalk west of the
mill, and the remains of the boiler
house adjoining on the west were also
listed with the mill. South of the lade,
the mill house at the southeast corner
of the site, and in separate ownership, is
also listed, but the contiguous Cheviot
House Mill, extending westward in two
sections parallel with the lade, is said to
be not listed, but it is within the
conservation area together with the
rest of the site. The Panel has objected
to a succession of ad hoc proposals by
the developer who had acquired the
site and has virtually cleared the rest of
the site without consent, including the
boiler house remains, for ‘safety
reasons’. We objected on the grounds
that they were premature, in the
absence of an agreed master plan for
the future development of the whole
site. Despite the continuing lack of such
a plan, the council approved the
conversion of the mill to flats. The
approved drawings show new wooden
windows with curved heads like the
originals, to follow the segmental
curved heads of the window openings.
On completion square-headed
windows were found to have been
installed, and remain despite complaints.
More recently, the developer has
applied to convert the three storey,
brick east block of Cheviot House Mill
to offices, demolish the west block for
parking space, and to transform the
listed engine house of the Adam
Paterson Mill into an entrance passage
to the offices. The developer proposes
to do this by opening up its back, west,
wall, excavating away its east approach
ramp and its raised internal floor,
consisting of massive stone foundations
(designed to restrain the vibrations of a
powerful steam engine bolted down to
it) and digging down to ground level, to
provide an easy level path to the new
offices. The panel argued that such a
path was possible, skirting round the
south side of the Engine House, so that
its virtual destruction could be avoided.
We await a decision and a master-plan
for the site.
transomed windows. Its picturesque
appearance, peeping out from the
wood, meant that when redundant, it
was converted to a small cottage with
a chimney and a glazed lean-to on the
eastern side. Its elaborate character, its
small size, its isolation and its measured
separation from the mansion,
continued to maintain its significance as
a part of the original Carlekemp
conception, and it was listed as such.
When it was proposed to form two
large roof lights with a horizontal
emphasis in the front (west) roof
slope, quite unrelated to the
fenestration below, the Panel suggested
that they should be smaller and set in
the rear (east) roof slope, and coordinated with the existing
fenestration, but the Council approved
the application. More recently this
cottage was the subject of repeated
applications, by talented architects,
seeking to enlarge the accommodation
on site by surrounding and framing the
cottage by additional two storey wings,
“The cases which we were most concerned
about were not necessarily those with which we
had most success”
Engine Cottage, Carlekemp, North
Berwick
This sumptuous English Cotswold style
mansion was built by John Kinross in
1898 with extensive tree girt policies
on a plateau overlooking the Forth. It
was served by its own generator in an
isolated small power house, sited at the
bottom of a wooded slope on the
western boundary of the estate, as far
from the house as possible to reduce
noise, and approached by a rough track
through a wood. It was visible from the
adjoining golf course and so was
disguised as a typical English halftimbered house, 2-storied and with an
overhanging pitched slate roof, with a
lower floor of stone with mullioned
stone windows and a close-timbered
upper floor with heavy diagonal braces
and 3-light wooden mullioned and
AUTUMN 2013
I
with fully glazed gable ends, reminiscent
of the original cottage, and timberframed car shelters nearby, to provide
a new home for their client,
understood to be a ‘volume housebuilder’. The Panel