Polish a period gem
Victorian time capsule is also a home for the future, says Paul Drury
IT was home to a captain of industry at a time when Scotland was widely regarded as the engine room of the world. Today, Highfield House provides a fascinating glimpse of the past as it comes on the market for the first time in nearly a century.
Walter Hamilton Napier was general manager of the Glasgow Iron and Steel Company, which was responsible for the materials that built some of Clydeside’s most famous liners.
Yet it is rich wood that is on show at the heart of his Motherwell home, in the hallway, as well as the finest cornicing and fireplaces.
Though he died in 1954, Napier’s family saw no reason to change the house too much. So it is now a captivating time capsule.
As period features were ripped out of many Scottish homes to make way for the transient trends of the 1950s and 1960s, Highfield kept its character.
The stained glass window on the hall landing represents the University of Glasgow, Napier’s alma mater.
The whole house has changed little since 1890, when the land was sold to Ellie Pollok, also known as Ferguson. A date stone above the entrance confirms the completion of her fine stone home a year later.
Napier moved in with his family in 1928 and the house has been in their ownership ever since.
Current owner Kay Napier, the industrialist’s grand-daughter, said: ‘It is going to be hard to part with it.
‘My family is quite settled in Edinburgh now. I suppose we kept the house because we wanted to see where our lives would take us. But we will not be moving back to the West and our children have shown no great desire to take it on.’
The estate agent is not exaggerating when describing Highfield House, in the Lanarkshire town’s Merry Street, as a ‘once in a lifetime opportunity for one lucky buyer’.
Due to the continuity of ownership, the property retains its dramatic original wooden doors and sash and case windows, some with original pelmets.
Some of the fireplaces betray a very definite Art Deco heritage, suggesting they replaced the originals in the 1930s, the only apparent concession to modernism.
The Victorian kitchen could never have survived, of course, but the owners have sensitively upgraded this room with attractive country-style units. The addition of an island, however, would bring it bang up-to-date.
Miss Napier has fond memories of growing up in Highfield House. She recalled: ‘The scale and location of it meant you could get up to all sorts of adventures.
‘We would climb out windows and make for the park next door. There was even an air raid shelter inside the house, a safe room with steel doors and iron-lined walls.
‘The steel door is still there but we took out the wall lining in the 1970s.’
It is not suggested that Highfield House is the finished article. One of the three bathrooms needs refurbishing and the downstairs electrics require upgrading.
But fans of period properties are being offered a rare opportunity to polish a five-bedroom Victorian gem.