Property in Care no: 330 Designations: Scheduled Monument (SM90311) Taken into State care: 1950 (Guardianship) Last reviewed: 2013

HISTORIC ENVIRONMENT STATEMENT OF SIGNIFICANCE

WESTQUARTER DOVECOT

We continually revise our Statements of Significance, so they may vary in length, format and level of detail. While every effort is made to keep them up to date, they should not be considered a definitive or final assessment of our properties.

Historic Environment Scotland – Scottish Charity No. SC045925 Principal Office: Longmore House, Salisbury Place, EH9 1SH

Historic Environment Scotland – Scottish Charity No. SC045925 Principal Office: Longmore House, Salisbury Place, Edinburgh EH9 1SH WESTQUARTER DOVECOT SYNOPSIS Westquarter Dovecot stands in Dovecot Road, Westquarter, a 1930s ‘garden suburb’ 2 miles ESE of . The property comprises a fine dovecot of the rectangular or ‘lectern’ type. The heraldic panel above the entrance doorway displays the arms of Sir William Livingston of Westquarter and his wife, Helenore, and the date 1647. However, architectural details suggest a date early in the 18th century for its construction, and it seems likely that the armorial panel was brought here from elsewhere.

CHARACTER OF THE MONUMENT Historical Overview: • 1503 – an Act of Parliament directs all lairds to erect ‘dowcats’ (pigeon houses) as a benefit to the community. • 1620s? – a mansion is built on the Westquarter (Wastquarter) estate, probably by Sir William Livingston and his wife, Dame Helenore. Westquarter House is depicted on Blaeu’s Atlas (1654). • 1650s - Sir William serves with his cousin and neighbour, James Livingston of Callendar, in the Royalist cause of Charles II against Oliver Cromwell. • 1701 – Westquarter passes to the Livingstons of Bedlormie (a village in West Lothian). They probably build the dovecot. • 1884 – Thomas Fenton Livingston demolishes Westquarter House (but not the dovecot) and replaces it with a new baronial-style mansion. • 1909 – the estate of Westquarter with its house is sold to James Nimmo, a Glasgow coal merchant, who works the local coal measures. • 1932 – the great Falkirk pageant is held at Westquarter House. • 1935 – following the passing into law of the Scottish Housing Act, Stirling County Council purchases the Westquarter Estate, demolishes Westquarter House and builds a model ‘Art & Crafts’ village, designed by John A W Grant, to house around 450 mining families. They are so proud of their achievement that they exhibit a scale model of the village at the Empire Exhibition in Bellahouston Park, Glasgow, in 1936. • 1948 - the dovecot is threatened with demolition, but is saved by being scheduled as an Ancient Monument. • 1950 - the dovecot is entrusted into state care. Archaeological Overview: Ordnance Survey maps show the dovecot (but do not specifically name it) standing a short distance to the south-east of the estate steading at Westquarter House. The structure is shown standing alone but linked to the neighbouring steading by a boundary wall running from its north-west corner.

No archaeological excavation is recorded as having taking place in the immediate vicinity of the structure, and it is not known whether any archaeological potential remains under or around it.

1/3 Architectural/Artistic Overview: The building is a well-preserved example of a dovecot built in the ‘lectern-style’. It retains its roof with flight holes, and its internal stone nesting boxes, numbering several hundred, as well as a circular setting in the centre of its brick floor for the potence (the ladder giving access to the upper nesting boxes).

The rubble-built structure is remarkably refined architecturally, given its relatively mundane function. Its tall north wall, surmounted by a scalloped parapet, terminates in panel-fronted corniced piers topped by stumpy pinnacles which tie in with the crow-stepped gables (The four ball finials along the roof ridge were placed there in 2000, to replace the missing originals.) There is one moulded perching-course running around the walls. At some late date the sloping slate roof has been repaired and a skylight inserted it.

Above the south-facing entrance door is a panel bearing the quartered arms and initials of Sir William Livingston of Westquarter and Dame Helenore Livingston, his wife, and the date 1647. The consensus of opinion is that this was placed here from elsewhere, at a date unknown, and that the dovecot is probably of the early 18th century because of details such as the droved, sharp- arrissed door jambs.

Social Overview: To be assessed. Spiritual Overview: Westquarter Dovecot has no known spiritual qualities.

Aesthetic Overview The building itself has a refined air about it, chiefly on account of the elegant finishing of its wall heads.

The building is surrounded by a high privet hedge and 20th-century housing – a sharp contrast to what its original setting would have been, mostly facing out onto open fields and parkland.

What are the major gaps in understanding of the property? • Where was the 1647 armorial panel brought from, and when did the dovecot cease to serve as a pigeon house? • A study of the development of the Westquarter estate, and of the Livingstons of Westquarter, in early modern times is required.

ASSESSMENT OF SIGNIFICANCE Key Points • Westquarter Dovecot is a very well preserved example of a ‘lectern-type’ dovecot. • The detailing of the dovecot marks it out as architecturally more ostentatious than most of its contemporaries.

2/3 • The dovecot is the last remnant of what was once a wealthy estate, and is thus a significant link with the past in an area where those links are largely no more.

Associated Properties

(some other notable ‘lectern’ dovecots) – Athelstaneford (E. Lothian); Cadboll (Hilton of Cadboll); Dumquhassle (near Drymen); Eglinton Mains (Ayrs); Finavon (Angus); Sauchie; Tantallon Castle; Tealing; Woodwick House (Orkney) (other free-standing dovecots in Historic Scotland’s care) – Aberdour Castle (circular); Blackness Castle (lectern); Corstorphine (circular); Dirleton Castle (circular) Keywords: dovecot; armorial panel; finials; Livingston Selected Bibliography: Fleming, J., Ancient Castles and Mansions of the Stirling Nobility Described (Paisley, 1902) Gifford, J & Walker F A., The Buildings of Scotland: Stirling and Central Scotland (New Haven & , 2002) Leask, D., Westquarter: The Story of an Estate (Falkirk District Council, 1986) RCAHMS., : An Inventory of the Ancient Monuments (HMSO, Edinburgh, 1963)

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