The Remains

I'm always interested to learn about magnificent edifices that no longer exist. Some have been taken down carefully and parts relocated (see yesterday's blip and maybe some future blips) but some are totally demolished. For example, I cannot understand how anyone could take a wrecking ball to something as intriguing as the Pagoda House, properly called Rockville, of which only the gateposts and garden wall remain.

Built by architect Sir James Gowans in 1856, Rockville consisted of a three-storey house with a five-storey, 64-foot tower of Oriental influence. Its projecting stone dormers, decorative iron balusters, massive chimneys and ornate gables gave it an eerie Gothic appearance. The external walls were built in a checkerboard pattern with a mosaic infill of coloured stones in a sandstone framework. The stones were selected from every quarry in Scotland, with samples from the Continent and China, and gave the building a rich effect of lightness and sparkle. The coloured granites produced a mainly reddish tint with highlights of green crystals of iron pyrites, an amethyst-like purple stone, silver mica and glittering quartz.

For more detail see rockville or pagoda house.

I should love to have seen it. According to a local resident who grew up in the area it was a fascinating place but, as a child, was afraid of the house next door, which was faced in white quartz and sparkled in the sun making it look ghostly.

Gowans built another house nearby which does survive, it is less extravangant in design but  gives an impression of the detail he incorporated into what one presumes was his dream home.