Building record MAB11780 - PRESHOME

South facing symmetrical 2-storey, 3-bay house built in 1830.

South facing symmetrical 2-storey, 3-bay house built in 1830. Rubble built with tooled ashlar dressings and margins. Central door with simple later wooden portico type porch. Regular 3-bay rear fenestration. Two centre stair windows lighting upper flights in the east gable with mainly 4-pane glazing. Coped end stacks and slate roof. Later single storey lean to at east gable. House and adjoining church enclosed by coped rubble wall. later 18th century. West facing 2-storey, regular 2-bay garden store, probably former pavilion wing to earlier house. Rubble built with tooled rubble dressings. Entrance to first floor by forestair at north gable and off centre gable entrance to ground floor in south gable. It has 9-pane glazing, centre ridge stack and piended Banffshire slate roof. Chapel House designed and built by Bishop Kyle with William Robertson who amended and drew the plans. The Rt. Rev. James Kyle became Vicar Apostolic of the Northern District of Scotland in 1828. He chose to reside at Preshome where he remained until his death in 1869. He was a remarkable administrator, a linguist, an architect and scholar, a key figure in the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland in the 19th century. 75,000 documents amassed at Preshome during his lifetime and filed in his personal archive room, are now in the Scottich Catholic Archive, Edinburgh. The Bishop was also a hospitable man, providing six attic rooms for his guests.

Period Notes
Present house built 1830.

BOGDAN, NQ, 1991, Castles, Manors & Town House survey, 37 (Bibliographic reference). SAB2251.

SDD, n.d., BLDS OF ARCH & HIST INTEREST, RATHVEN 25 (Bibliographic reference). SAB1827.

Author unknown, n.d., NSA, 255 (Bibliographic reference). SAB1269.

Record last edited

Jul 26 2022 11:13AM