M189 Windyhill, Kilmacolm

Commission and context

Windyhill was built for produce broker and commission merchant William Davidson in Kilmacolm, 14 miles (22.5 km) W. of Glasgow. Davidson, his wife Jean and three young sons were already resident in Kilmacolm when Windyhill was commissioned. 1 From c. 1895 Mackintosh had undertaken small commissions for Davidson, but how he first became acquainted with him is not yet known. 2

Kilmacolm grew rapidly following the arrival of the railway in 1869. In 1900, the steep W.-facing hillside on which Windyhill was built marked the S. edge of the village. The large 1890s villas of Kilmacolm's commuting professionals nearby epitomised the taste for the vernacular revival style. While some houses included Scottish Baronial details, typically English features such as half-timbering, red tile roofs and leaded casement windows predominated. 3 These can be seen at James Salmon's distinctive Rowantreehill (1898) immediately W. of Windyhill. Mackintosh relied heavily on Scottish traditions, borrowed historical English details and referred to recent developments in creating his design. 4

Windyhill was a private commission, one of several which Mackintosh seems to have been allowed to pursue prior to becoming a partner in the John Honeyman & Keppie practice in 1901. Thus only the garden furniture and some interior furnishings, which date to 1903–5, are recorded in the practice job books. Mackintosh completed the planning application in 1900 and handled all financial aspects of the project. His final statement of accounts is laid out like a job-book entry. 5

Drawings

Two sets of plans, elevations and sections survive. No date is inscribed on either set, however the drawings must have been completed by July 1900 when the planning application was submitted. 6 Both sets bear the stamp of the Master of Works Department, County of Renfrew Second or Lower District and a handwritten date of approval. For reasons which are unclear, the two sets were approved on consecutive days, 7 and 8 August 1900. Revisions appear in the second set, which shows the house as built (see Interior, below). 7

Mackintosh prepared two perspective drawings showing the house from the N.W. and S.E. Both are inscribed with the date 1900 and Mackintosh's initials. They correspond almost entirely to the first set of planning drawings, except for the omission of a first-floor dormer window, which might have been an oversight. 8 One drawing was exhibited at the Royal Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts in 1901. 9

Exterior

Windyhill was built on a steep site which required significant initial ground work. 10 It is set behind a high new rubble boundary wall in which Mackintosh incorporated a swooping dip with dressed stone coping low enough to offer a tantalising glimpse from the street into the private world behind, and vice versa. 11 The house is L-shaped and its interior is organised into functional areas expressed as distinct volumes. The principal rooms and family bedrooms are arranged in the two-storey W.-facing section. The lower, two-storey S.-facing wing contains the kitchen, and servants' and ancillary rooms. This terminates in a long cat-slide gable at the N.E. Attached is a single-storey washhouse and laundry. At the N. are a two-storey apsidal stair tower, and a wider and slightly lower porch. 12

The house is roughcast, possibly over whinstone rubble. 13 This extends into window and door openings, except at the front door which has sandstone dressings. Originally untreated, the roughcast has been subsequently lime-washed. The uniform surface treatment gives an austere appearance, particularly on the flat W. elevation. It also lends the house a sculptural quality by emphasising volume, creating stark forms and casting sharp shadows. 14 Roofs are pitched and slated except at the porch, which is flat behind a shallow parapet. The pitched slate roof of the stair tower is concealed by the parapet but is indicated by the ogee form at its S. wall.

Mackintosh's choice of material marked a new development in his oeuvre: roughcast became an important element of his work in the early 1900s, linking it to traditional building in Scotland and England and to the UK-wide vernacular revival. On sketching trips, particularly those in S.W. England in the 1890s, he had recorded examples of 16th- and 17th-century manors and cottages. The importance to Mackintosh of Scottish building traditions and his belief that a revival of those traditions to 'conform to modern requirements' was possible were expressed in his 1891 lecture on 'Scotch Baronial Architecture'. 15

Contemporary vernacular revival work in Scotland appeared in James MacLaren and Dunn & Watson's cottages, Glenlyon House and Hotel at Fortingall in highland Perthshire, drawings of which were published by the Architectural Illustration Society in June 1891. 16 Mackintosh knew the publication but whether he consulted these illustrations when designing Windyhill nine years later is not known. Robert Lorimer's cottages at Colinton, Edinburgh and Voysey's villas in S.E. England of the 1890s are also thought to have influenced Windyhill. 17

The front doorway well illustrates MacLaren and Dunn & Watson's influence: the massive sandstone lintel and jambs echo the prominent main entrance of Fortingall Hotel. But at Windyhill the doorway is embedded into the building within the interpenetrating planes of projecting lintel, roughcast wall and low eaves. 18 The single, unmoulded, ashlar stones of the lintel and deep-set left-hand jamb, and the three stones of the right-hand jamb create a forthright entrance, which, despite its scale, is hidden from view, set at right angles to the approach path.

The multiple-paned timber sash and leaded casement windows are diverse in form and dimension. In the service wing they are small and irregularly distributed, reflecting the diversity of spaces behind. On the W. elevation the windows are smaller but more regularly disposed. However Mackintosh deliberately disrupted this facade by locating the southern-most first-floor window on the S. elevation, consciously creating a blank expanse on the exterior. 19 The distinctive canted bay with horizontal band of glazing under deep, flattened eaves on the W. elevation derives from a house Mackintosh had sketched in Lyme Regis; the drawing was published in the British Architect in 1895. 20 The two sets of drawings prepared for the planning application and the perspectives show that Mackintosh had wanted all E.-facing windows to be leaded casements.

Interior

The house is entered via a mosaic-floored porch which opens onto the N. end of the hall at the foot of the stairs. The long, wide hall with windows to the E. gives access to the drawing room with its W.-facing canted bay, offering panoramic views of the high moorland; the playroom with canted bay at the N.; and the dining room to the S. Behind a door at the S. a service corridor leads E. down several stairs to the kitchen and ancillary rooms. The stairs are a simple dog-leg with half-landing within the curved wall, and clearly allude to historic Scottish towers with winding stairs.

On the first floor, the narrow hall gives into a master bedroom with an adjoining bed- or dressing room, and three further bedrooms facing W. A further bedroom has a southern aspect. The E. side of the corridor contains a window alcove which overlooks the front garden and aligns with the curved dip in the boundary wall, allowing curious passers-by to be observed, unnoticed, from the house. Servants' rooms facing S. and a back stair are arranged above the kitchen and ancillary rooms. The bathroom is above the porch.

The house was built according to the plans dated 8 August 1900, which displayed minor revisions to the first floor. Initially, a dark room was provided for William Davidson, an enthusiastic amateur photographer. This was sacrificed to allow the bathroom to be moved from its location on the 7 August plan, in the N.-facing canted bay above the playroom, accessed from the half-landing.

The L-shaped plan was typical of vernacular revival houses. Robert Macleod has suggested that the layout of Windyhill derives specifically from The Hurst, Sutton Coldfield (1893) by W. R. Lethaby, whose work Mackintosh admired. 21 Similarities can be seen in the disposal and orientation of the ground-floor rooms and the inclusion of a canted bay in the drawing room. 22

The long, broad hall at Windyhill served two purposes: circulation and entertaining. The Davidsons used it as a dining room for larger gatherings. 23 Multi-functional halls, usually with a focal fireplace and staircase, were a typical feature of revivalist Victorian houses, and drew on historic traditions such as the Elizabethan Great Hall. 24 The tapering columns and lintel around the Windyhill hall fireplace recall the form of a garden gate, connecting inside with out. 25

Mackintosh did not design all the interior fittings and furniture for the new house; the Davidsons brought existing furniture including earlier Mackintosh pieces from Gladsmuir. The interiors at Windyhill displayed close similarities to contemporary schemes for his matrimonial flat at 120 Mains Street, Glasgow. 26

Garden

The outdoor space was integral to Mackintosh's design. The high boundary wall and garden layout on the E. side and the terrace to the W. are outlined in pencil on the first ground-floor plan. 27 Four distinct spaces were created around the house and another below the steep rocky slope. Wooden garden furniture was commissioned in 1903. 28 Much of what is seen in the garden today (2014) recreates Mackintosh's design, though not all of the garden furniture has been reinstated and planting around the house has been changed.

Inside the gateway from Rowantreehill Road – a white-painted, wooden structure with high, flat lintel – a gravel path leads to the house. To its left (S.) is a carefully arranged square lawn with central square pond, originally with a central fountain, and a yew tree at each corner.

To the W., with access from the drawing room, is a terrace where six regularly-spaced fruit trees were to be planted. 29 In the perspective drawing, two short box hedges each decorated with a bird sculpture are shown below the terrace wall. 30 At the N. end of the terrace, controlling movement around the N. elevation, was a dark-painted trellis screen with a bird sculpture rising from a base of two interlocking circles.

To the N., supported by a curved retaining wall parallel with the stair tower, originally with hedge above, is a raised lawn, intended for tennis. 31 To the S. is a cobbled service yard with double access gate and drying greens to its W. It is not known whether this was simply a delivery yard: plans for a coach house and stable indicated on the first block plan were abandoned. 32 The low W. garden was set aside for fruit trees and vegetables. 33

Mackintosh's scheme demonstrates an awareness of contemporary writing on garden design. During the 1890s enclosed, geometric designs created by an architect and understood as an extension of the house were advocated by architects including J .D. Sedding and Reginald Blomfield. Muthesius voiced his support in Das englische Haus (1904). 34 Complementing the sources used for vernacular revival buildings, architects turned to the formal gardens of the 16th and 17th centuries for inspiration. Elizabethan and Jacobean gardens influenced by the Italian Renaissance incorporated 'stiff patterns' and 'hedges becoming walls', as Mackintosh himself remarked in his notes on Elizabethan Architecture (c. 1892). 35

An 1897 article in the Studio by London-based Scottish architect J. J. Joass may have been of specific interest to Mackintosh. 'On Gardening: with descriptions of some formal gardens in Scotland' considered and illustrated surviving Jacobean gardens as a source for gardens for both aristocratic and more modest houses. 36

Later alterations and restoration

At some time during their ownership, Mr and Mrs Davidson had shutters fitted to the W. elevation and to bedroom windows on the S. and E. elevations. It is thought that this was to counteract the austere appearance, of the W. elevation in particular. Perhaps for similar reasons ivy or Virginia Creeper was grown on the W. elevation.

At a later date, an attic dormer was added to the E.-facing roof above the stair tower; a new staircase giving access to the attic was constructed from the cupboard adjacent to the master bedroom; and the first-floor hall fireplace was removed. Two drawings showing gas and water piping and bell wiring suggest further work was done related to these functions, but no date is given.

In 1979 Windyhill changed hands for the third time since its sale by the Davidson family in 1934. Much of the house had fallen into a state of disrepair: over the following five years it was returned close to its original condition, using Annan's contemporaneous photographs and other sources to restore and recreate Mackintosh's designs. Original stencilling in the first-floor master bedroom, lost to later overpainting, was reproduced with the help of enlarged photographs. 37

By 2001, when the house was acquired by a fifth – and in 2014, current – owner, the house again needed attention. Annan photographs were again carefully used as a basis to restore and recreate the original appearance of the house. Mackintosh scholars were consulted and specialist conservators and craftspeople employed. Reproduction oak furniture was commissioned for the hall, drawing room and master bedroom. The formal gardens immediately around the house were put in order and the white-painted wooden trellis at the N.E. corner was repaired. The kitchen and bathroom have been completely refitted. 38

A report on the condition of Windyhill was produced as part of the Mackintosh Buildings Survey, led by the Charles Rennie Mackintosh Society and carried out between 2015 and 2016. 39

Critical and popular reception

A perspective drawing was exhibited at the Royal Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts in 1901 (743). The austerity of the house displeased the Glasgow Herald art critic, who wrote: 'Windyhill, by Mr Macintosh [sic], is a mannered pen drawing of a house that shows only roofing and rough-cast, purely negative in its architecture, assertive only in its very affected simplicity.' 40 It was customary for a selection of the exhibited drawings and photographs to be reproduced in Academy Architecture: in 1901 Mackintosh's work was not included. Perhaps his designs were judged unsuitable; or he may not have had photographs of Windyhill available in time to meet the publication deadline.

The house stood out in Kilmacolm. Its austere exterior was compared to a barracks or prison by locals, who subjected William Davidson to 'well-meant but uninformed banter' on his regular train journey to Glasgow. 41

In 1902 Hermann Muthesius's article 'The Glasgow Art Movement' was published in Dekorative Kunst. It included many photographs of Windyhill, taken by Annan, as well as illustrations of the floor plans. Muthesius suggested that the 'austere simplicity of the bleak rough-cast exterior' was created 'in sympathy with the character of the location' and described the 'geometric design of the garden' as 'particularly appealing'. 42 Two photographs of the N.E. elevation and one of the main bedroom which illustrated Muthesius' article were reproduced the following year in the Russian journal Mir Iskusstva (World of Art).. 43

Windyhill became a showpiece for new commissions. Mr and Mrs Blackie visited prior to agreeing on a design for their new house at Helensburgh; to help Francis J. Shand define ideas for his new home at Killearn, Mackintosh sent him a copy of Muthesius's Dekorative Kunst article. While the Blackies welcomed Mackintosh's approach and commissioned The Hill House, Shand's sympathies clearly lay elsewhere: Auchinibert is exceptional in its Tudor style. 44