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Thomson began his career by designing villas. They were for those
merchants and industrialists of Glasgow who wished to move out of
the increasingly dirty and unsanitary city to live, or vacation, in
more Elysian surroundings, either in southern suburbs or - thanks
to the steamboat - down the Clyde Estuary. These villas, more than
any other building type tackled by Thomson, demonstrate his architectural
development from stylistic elececticism to single-mindedness, and
some of them - because they were illustrated in the book, Villa and
Cottage Architecture Published in 1868 - became his most influential
and imitated designs.
The
earliest villas by Baird & Thomson are not Greek, but were designed
in a wide range of currently fashionable styles. Strongly influenced
by the picturesque in their asymmetrical massing and sometimes composed
around a belvedere, they seem to have owed much to the varied designs
illustrated in the Encyclopedia of Cottage, Farm and Villa Architecture
(first published 1833) and the other publications by John Claudius
Loudon. The authorship of very few of these houses is documented;
indeed, none of Thomson's early works down the Clyde Estuary would
probably be attributed to him if two of his riparian summer villas
at Cove with similar details and massing had not been published
in Villa and Cottage Architecture. One of these was Craig Ailey
the other Seymour Lodge - 'an adaptation of the later Gothic' which
was widely imitated, both by Thomson and by others. Other houses
at Cove and elsewhere, both detached and semi-detached, were designed
in a simplified Gothic style which may have owed something to Pugin.
Thomson also experimented with the newly fashionable Scottish Baronial
manner at Craigrownie House and Knockderry Castle.
The
best early villas are in a round-arched or Romanesque style, such
as Craig Ailey, of 1852, which was also known as 'The Italian Villa'.
This compact and clever composition already shows Thomson's mastery
of Picturesque composition.
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Craig
Ailey (Italian Villa)
South Ailey Road, Cove
New
villa, for John McElroy, developer, railway contractor and ironfounder,
£1,154:16:6d. c.1852.
Drawings (of modified design) in Blackie.
Villa
with belvedere in round-arched manner designed, as the architect (presumably)
wrote in Blackie, as 'only a summer residence', which 'affords a good
example of the capabilities of the Italian style, and how that style may
be made to combine modern requirements, such as large and numerous windows,
oriels, balconies, &c., with graceful forms and picturesque grouping.
'External walls of schist rubble and freestone, with the battered basement
formed of vertical courses of rubble stone. There is confusion over the
name of this house: the document compiled for the Thomson Memorial lists
under 'Villas' both Craig Ailey, Kilcreggan and the Italian Villa (the
APSD only lists the Italian Villa), yet on the first edition (1862) Ordnance
Survey map, surveyed in 1860, the Italian Villa is marked where Craig
Ailey stands today while no other house is labeled 'Craig Ailey'. Further
confusion is created by the fact that Craig Ailey is not in Kilcreggan
- as both Blackie and the Memorial state - but in Cove. The Italian Villa
(but not Craig Ailey) is mentioned in the 1871 census as occupied by the
Newman family. John McElroy (1802-76) was a successful railway contractor
and 'proprietor of houses', born in Ireland and resident at Craigrownie
Cottage in 1861. He was also an ironfounder whose firm, Weir & McElroy,
supplied much of the ironwork for the St Vincent Street Church. With Thomous
Forgan, McElroy built Cove Pier in 1852 and he took the fues on land running
south, on which were built Baron Cliff (q.v.), Craig Ailey (q.v.), Hartfield,
Barons Hall (q.v.), Glen Eden (q.v.), Craigrownie House (q.v.) and other
villas, some but not all of which were designed by Thomson. Craig Ailey
was built on part of an 8-acre (3¼ hectare) plot also containing
Craigrownie House and Craigrownie Cottage which was fued in 1852, although
the account in Blackie gives the date 1850 for the house.
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