A house for the Sillitto family - house gallery comments
Click here for the story of the house
Click on any thumbnail. Picture will open in another page.
A 13 acre zone "of great landscape value" where a building density of 4 houses per acre was envisaged.
1958
Charterhall Road, Edinburgh, where George Morrison & Son offered "sites to feu" provided they did the building.
1958
The model for our house, designed by architects Morris & Steedman for that steep north-facing slope.
January 1959
Fencing the site at the west end of the former sheep pasture beside Charterhall Road.
October 1959
Bulldozing to level a slight plateau halfway down the site.
October 1959
Looking north-east
1960
Looking north.
1960
Notice the chimney (centre, to be above the cooker) and sump (left, for single-stack plumbing).
1960
Looking northwest.
1960
External work complete. So the builders go off to another job for a few months.
1960
Cyril Morrison was a superb joiner. Here he is installing the ceiling.
1960
Tools on the windowsill.
The builders underestimated the work required when they first scanned the architects' drawings.
1960
Evening sun.
Still not finished.
1960
The architects' view
1961
Blackford hill from the railway bridge.
1961
Looking over Blackford Halt, where trains to Waverley or Morningside stopped until the Beeching cuts.
1961
The first 'modern' house visible from an Edinburgh bus route.
1961
Ours at last!
We could not get the keys until we paid for many 'extras'.
April 1961
Spring again.
The hillside was ablaze with the gold of the whins.
1961
John Hutchison's view from his garden.
Early 1961
Dick Sillitto's view.
Late summer 1961
My view - painting all the internal walls.
About 35 square metres of chipboard and 150 metres of careful edges per coat, for upstairs alone!
1961
Morning sun.
1962
Tracks where the ground was disturbed -
electricity beside the boulders, gas centrally, and water or drainage right.
The Hutchison's old flowering cherry and their new strip of garden are on the right here.
1961
A very steep climb.
1962
We planted a rowan. Self-sown birch and broom were already there.
1962
Access has been more manageable since the approach was redesigned after 1963's long spell of snow.
1966 or 1967
Spring with daffodils from the Isle of Lewis.
1966 or 1967
In the back garden bob-a-jobbers have levelled a lawn.
1966 or 1967
Salisbury Crags - "The Prows o' Reekie".
1966 or 1967
View from Mortonhall Road.
May 1969
A new builder has acquired the feuing rights and is building roads, dumping soil behind us.
Arthur's Seat is still visible from the back garden.
1970 ?
An extension designed by Morris & Steedman had been built over the courtyard in 1970.
1973
Preparations for a new house were going on beside our fence.
1973
Houses are getting closer.
A multigarage backs onto our garden where a grasshopper warbler used to sing.
Heatly (Builders) considering the problem created by the roof of the extension.
1974
The building density is now between 6 and 7 houses per acre.
May 1974
Some of the wood above the extension had to be replaced.
1974
Looking towards Blackford Pond in a spectacular downpour. No problems with the extension roof now.
1974
The west end of the house, and the shed where we kept a boat and a freezer.
May 1974
The view has changed.
May 1974
The new house is much higher than its plans promised.
May 1974
Wild flowers in the font garden included thyme, birdsfoot trefoil, meadow saxifrage and harebells.
1976 ?
The asbestos panels need to be painted.
We added a porch in 1980 - it cost about the same as the extension in 1970 or three quarters of the original 1959 contract price.
The east end.
1990
The south face, with shadow of the porch.
1990
Looking between the self-sown brooms by the roadside.
1990
The bin screen at the front door, seen through the damson branches. The larch that we planted by the boulders is on the right. Only a stump remains of the earliest birch tree.
1990
The north face in the evening sun.
1990
Evening sun in early spring.
1990
A last look at our house on Blackford Hill. It was sold at the end of March, 1991.
Late spring 1990
