Bush House

Bush House is a neat A-listed Classical mansion surrounded by parkland 2 miles (3 km) north northeast of Penicuik in Midlothian. The original house was built c.1750 on the site of an earlier farmhouse for Archibald Trotter who had acquired the estate through marriage in 1746. His son, Robert Trotter (1749 - 1807), commissioned Robert Adam (1728-92) and James Adam (1732-94) to draw up plans to extend and improve the house, which were used in-part for major work undertaken in 1795. This added a new dining room, drawing room, a semi-circular porch, main staircase, stable block and office wing. The porch is elegant and unusual; comprising four pairs of Doric columns with a balustrade surrounding a bow-front above.

The house was recast and further extended 1894-95 by Sir Robert Rowand Anderson (1834 - 1921), who modified the roof to permit additional space on the attic floor, added bedrooms and built a billiard room to the northwest. Fireplaces for the principal rooms and tiles for the hall were salvaged from another nearby Trotter property, Dryden House, which had become uninhabitable and was later demolished.

The Trotters owned the Bush until the mid-20th century, when the estate was acquired by the University of Edinburgh. Bush House is now at the centre of the Edinburgh Technopole. Today, Bush House comprises two-storeys and an attic, with an office wing, stables and courtyard behind to the northwest. Constructed of buff sandstone ashlar, with a steeply sloping slate roof, it provides 520 sq. m (5599 sq feet) of flexible office space, with rooms ranging from 14 to 47 sq. m (150 - 500 sq. feet), together with meeting and conference rooms which can accommodate up to 100 people.


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