Sites and Monument Record: Cowdenhill House (SMR 911)
Description
Cowdenhill House stood on the south side of the main coastal road running east from Bo'ness to Carriden, with a walled garden stretching up the hill behind it and a range of offices arranged around a courtyard to its SW. Cowdenhill Road was inserted immediately to its west in the 1890s.
The building appears to have started as a substantial two-storey dwelling, approximately 16.8m long by 7.8m broad, aligned roughly W/E. Its main facade was onto the road with a central Classical doorway flanked by pilasters below a rectangular entablature and moulded cornice. The windows were symmetrically disposed with two to either side of the door on each floor. Above the doorway rose a broad chimney stack, forming an important feature of the frontage. Set at is base was an inset panel with simple moulded borders, bearing the date "1676/ AL." The walls were of random rubble. The staircase appears to have been housed in a central well protruding from the back of the house. Attached to the east side of the house was a long narrow building. This may have been the source of a re-used lintel bearing the inscription "16 TF AB 47."
Considerable reconstruction occurred in the late 18th century. An extra storey was added, obscuring the original chimney stack, with two windows to the east and one to the west. The ground floor window west of the main entrance seems to have been converted into a doorway with a low lintel, as was the window above it, suggesting the existence of a forestair and the use of the building as apartments. The original roof would have been steeply pitched with crowstepped gables, now it was low with plain skews.
At the very end of the 19th century the house was occupied by William Lynn, the manager of the Bridgeness colliery. In 1894 the old offices were demolished and a new dairy and byre for 24 cows was built on the east side of the new road. A single storey west wing was added to Cowdenhill House.
The house was demolished c1974. A fireplace from the house is now built into Bonnytoun House, Linlithgow. The site is occupied by a community centre.
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