M206 Alterations to Fairlie Cottage

Fairlie Cottage is one of a cluster of early 19th-century seaside houses – 'marine villas' – in the Ayrshire village of Fairlie, overlooking the Firth of Clyde. 1 It was used as a 'summer retreat' by the Glasgow-born scientist James J. Dobbie (1852–1924) and his family, eventually becoming Dobbie's permanent home on his retirement in 1920. 2

In 1903, after 19 years as Professor of Chemistry and Geology at the University College of North Wales in Bangor, Dobbie was appointed Director of the Royal Scottish Museum in Edinburgh. 3 It may have been in anticipation of returning to Scotland and spending more time at Fairlie that he employed Honeyman, Keppie & Mackintosh to carry out improvements to the house in 1902–3.

The job-book entry gives little information about what was done. Relatively small sums seem to have been spent on raising and pointing the boundary wall, and on a damp-proof course at the stables. (The stables no longer survive.) The rest of the overall cost of £565 13s 2d would have been sufficient for an extension, but comparing the O.S. maps of 1897 and 1911, the footprint of the house seems unchanged, which suggests the work may have been limited to internal alterations.

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