The Herald - The Herald Magazine
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JUST 10 minutes from Glasgow, Paisley is Scotland’s largest town and although best known for its textile history, it is also home to many architectural gems – in fact, the town centre has 110 listed buildings, a higher concentration than anywhere in Scotland outside of Edinburgh. The imposing building at the head of Brodie Park Avenue is not listed but beautiful nonetheless, with its tall chimneys rising up from the front façade and identical turreted bays on either side.
Inside are just six apartments over three storeys – one of which is a striking top floor apartment that marries period features and modern fittings to remarkable effect.
Accessed by a security door entry system into an impeccably maintained period close and stairwell lit by a large roof skylight, this home features space in abundance.
This starts with a 28ft dining hall with hardwood flooring, which leads to an elegant bay-windowed lounge with focal fireplace, large dining kitchen, king-size bedroom and adjoining bathroom with over-bath shower and wood-panelled walls to half-height.
Off the far end of the hall is a dressing room which could alternatively be a small study/office, and a spacious bay-windowed ‘turret’ room overlooking Brodie Park – currently used as a second reception/ sitting room although it would also make a wonderful principal bedroom. This flat also has the benefit of a private attic space, which subject to planning consents, could be developed to provide additional accommodation.
At the rear of the building is an attractive and well-tended communal garden – better still, this home has Brodie Park on its doorstep. Situated in a peaceful part of the town, the park was gifted to Paisley ‘Buddies’ by Robert Brodie in 1877 and has a long history for bandstand concerts.
However, its other claim to fame is perhaps not widely known outside the town – it has two resident kangaroos, initially presented to the town in the late 1800s.
Flats of this size and specification are rare and this one is really exceptional – offers over £179,995 are invited by Cochrane Dickie estate agency in Paisley.
THE volume of properties sold in the East of Scotland across Edinburgh, the Lothians, Fife and the Borders over the last three months has soared by 128 per cent compared to the same period in 2020, according to the ESPC’s latest data. While the number of properties coming to the market suggests good confidence from sellers as lockdown restrictions are eased further, the strong sales figures also highlight buyer demand, says ESPC. Average selling prices also rose across the four regions – up 8.9 per cent collectively compared to last year, while regional price gains varied from 8 per cent in Edinburgh and 9.5 per cent in the Borders, rising to 12 per cent in Midlothian and a 15.5 per cent year-on-year rise in East Fife, where the average selling price is £241,651. In a similar vein, the average time taken to sell a property decreased.
LONDON-based property developer Charles Garton Jones has revealed plans to deliver 16, three and four-bedroomed detached family homes in Portree on the Isle of Skye, which if approved, will be designed by Olli Blair Architects in Plockton to occupy the five-acre site of the former Portree Golf Course, which has not been in use since the 1950s.
The architect’s proposal is designed around a contemporary interpretation of a highland clachan with a communal shared area at its heart, to foster a sustainable community. The developer also hopes to provide the homes with an ultrafast broadband connection free of charge for the first five years. The island is well-known to Charles Garton Jones and his wife Miranda, who are also building an eco-resort inspired by the luxury resorts of the Caribbean and Thailand on the same site, which is due to open in April next year. And in 2014 the couple bought the old Uig Youth Hostel on Skye and transformed it into the Cowshed Boutique Bunkhouse, giving island visitors a new style of hostel experience.
CLOSER to home, the beautiful Victorian linked villas that formed a major part of the Craigholme school campus in St Andrews Drive in Pollokshields are to be returned to their original residential use, as part of a development designed by Wellwood Leslie Architects to create large villas and duplex apartments with associated garden/shared amenity space.