-4.527773, 55.862118

Craigends House

also Victorian Mansion House

Initially the house was sound and we played in the house. Latterly the floors had fallen in, probably after they took the roof off. But we still played in it and at one point we could still get to the upper floors, but it was quite dangerous. [...] Our parents banned us from playing in the house but we did it anyway. Never be allowed today!
1
[My week spent in Craigends House] consisted of going in the back door and along this huge, huge corridor, with doors to the left, and doors to the right. And [] just before you came to the stairs that went up to, what must have been the hall, was the kitchen door. And (I) just sat in there.
2
I can't remember exactly when it was, but it was new year's day, and after our meal we always went for a wee walk and we went up to Craigends. I can remember we were standing up on the rocks just about where the back of the house would be, and the steam was still coming up.
3
The instance when that picture fell off the wall. [It] must have been about the size of that wall there. [My dad] got the phone call and they had to go and get the other men, probably Jimmy Philips and Jimmy Blair, and the rest of them, and try and get the thing back up again.
4

Alec recalls a family story from when his two aunts were school children at Paisley Grammar School... The girls walked through Craigends Estate on their way to-and-from the (no longer existant) Houston train station . There was a strict understanding, however that no one should pass in sight of the Mansion House (this was strictly the domain of the gentry). Unfortunately for the girls this meant taking a long detour via Crosslee.

Guessing that the ladies were unlikely to be awake at the early hour they were leaving for school, at some point the two girls decided it safe to take the more direct path past the Mansion House in the morning. It is thought that the young girls happily kept this routine for some time.

One day, though, their mother (Alec's grandmother) was invited to the Mansion House for afternoon tea with Mrs Cuninghame. During conversation Mrs Cuninghame mentioned: "We don't see the wee Scotts in the afternoon." This short phrase said it all. Obviously the girls had not escaped the attention of Mrs Cuninghame and her sister in the mornings. A stern reprimand awaited the girls, from their mother!

5
Alec remembers distinctly the first and only time he took a shortcut past Craigends House when going about his farm work. His father gave him such a huge telling off that he never forgot the lesson.
6
Alec recalled that the splendour of Craigends House far exceeded that of Houston House, or – to his mind- any other mansion in Renfrewshire. The vantage of the house and surrounding trees from the north side of the Gryfe was particularly impressive.
7
Alec recounted the lore that Craigends House had 365 windows: “one for each day of the year”.
8
Alec's grandmother's brother, Neil McColl, was the factor at Craigends for some time. At this time his grandmother regularly visited Home Farm, and was also often a guest at Craigends House.
9
Alec was surprised to hear that Craigends House was built as recently as 1857.
10
The (ATS) women were terrified of the White Lady because when they were returning after a night out it could be mistaken for a ghost standing at the foot of the stairs, especially if the moon was shining through the landing window and they'd maybe had a drink!!
11
After Alison died Laura got life-tenancy of the house and when she died not long afterwards, the house went to the Pearson side of the family and the land went to the Cuninghames, who sold it to Taylor Woodrow.
12
The Pearson who got the house didn't have the money to maintain it and sold off all the Adam's fireplaces, paintings and things like that. Then he took the roof of so that he didn't have to pay rates and then it went into total decline.
13
The front entrance of the house still stood, the pool at the back was still there as were the walls of the old stable area and the gardens.
14
I can't believe we wandered around the old manor house as most of the floorboards were rotten, with big drops below.
15
Quite often we found old stone bottles in wee dumps near the manor.
16
When playing in the ruins as a boy, a group were all over the house for approximately four hours. When it was time to go home, we were walking away, turning round to see two people at an upstairs window, a man and a women. Just looking down at us. There was only one way upstairs, one spiral staircase without handrails, as the other staircase was inaccessible, ruined. There was no way they could have got in the house after we left. I remember this as if it was yesterday, although it was nearly 40 years ago.
17
It was a great place. All the staircases were still there and we had access to the whole house. It used to take a whole day to finish a game of hide and seek!!!
18
We [] explored the house, climbed the stairs and tried not to fall through the gaping holes in the upper floors.
19
It's just as I remember the big house, but as if somebody had scrubbed the whole building clean.
20
In the late 1850s and 1860s, Bryce's mainstream, irregularly planned Scotch Baronial pattern reached its climax in a series of very large commissions. The first and, perhaps, most spectacular was Craigends (1857-9), built for Alexander Cunninghame. With swaggering panache, Bryce deftly balanced an overall richness with due emphasis on the most important elements of the building. The entrance facade was dominated by a Fyvie-type tower at one end, containing the entrance. By comparison with the Seton Tower itself, this was of a far more compressed, Baroque character, built of freestone rather than harled rubble, and groaning with additional features such as a balcony, a square balustraded tower begind it, cast-iron ornamentation, and mullioned windows. Providing a balance at the other end of the entrance facade was a Maybole-type tower, here reduced to a clearly subsidiary role; the garden from was symmetrical, between two gables.
21
The new house is believed to have influenced architecture by setting the example of having a central hall forming the main lounge and sitting room of the house.
22
One of Bryce's major works during his first fully independent decade was Craigends in Renfewshire. Craigends bears many of the hallmarks of Bryce's Scottish Baronial style. He had already framed an asymmetrical entrance with twin half towers and bartizans at Clifton Hall and he was to repeat it in his 1869 design for Blair. Other typical Bryce features at Craigends are the huge first floor windows, the romantic skyline of towers, turrets and gables and the outworks of masonry; flights of stairs, conservatories, retaining walls and bridges that spread out from the main block like roots anchoring a huge tree to the land around. In fact the connection of the house to its setting was something that must have absorbed Bryce - a point brought home by the magnificent colour slides. [...] Not surprisingly the most impressive views of Craigends are not the water-colour perspectives, painted for exhibition at the Royal Scottish Academy, but the photographs taken during the demolition of the house which dramatise Bryce's romantic silhouettes. Seacliffe, above the sheer East Lothian cliff, is another building which is more impressive in ruins than intact.
23

1. (This snippet is deprecated - source requires to be updated)

2. (This snippet is deprecated - source requires to be updated)

3. (This snippet is deprecated - source requires to be updated)

4. (This snippet is deprecated - source requires to be updated)

5. (This snippet is deprecated - source requires to be updated)

6. (This snippet is deprecated - source requires to be updated)

7. (This snippet is deprecated - source requires to be updated)

8. (This snippet is deprecated - source requires to be updated)

9. (This snippet is deprecated - source requires to be updated)

10. (This snippet is deprecated - source requires to be updated)

11. (This snippet is deprecated - source requires to be updated)

12. (This snippet is deprecated - source requires to be updated)

13. (This snippet is deprecated - source requires to be updated)

14. (This snippet is deprecated - source requires to be updated)

15. (This snippet is deprecated - source requires to be updated)

16. (This snippet is deprecated - source requires to be updated)

17. (This snippet is deprecated - source requires to be updated)

18. (This snippet is deprecated - source requires to be updated)

19. (This snippet is deprecated - source requires to be updated)

20. (This snippet is deprecated - source requires to be updated)

21. (This snippet is deprecated - source requires to be updated)

22. (This snippet is deprecated - source requires to be updated)

23. (This snippet is deprecated - source requires to be updated)

Do you have anything to add to this subject? If so please let us know.

Get in touch

Hello, I'm Michael Hopcroft.

I grew up in Craigends (1982-2001).

Please get in touch if you have any memories, stories or photos of Craigends that you'd be willing to share.

I look forward to hearing from you!