One of the many great things about older houses is the surprises they have in store.
Built in a long-gone era, they’ve frequently been added to over the generations and have no shortage of unique, beautiful or quirky features.
Lawpark House at 120 Hepburn Gardens is thought to be the oldest house on one of St Andrews’ longest-established streets.
The oldest parts of the original property date from around 1620.
It’s owned by Mairi Scott, who is a professor at Dundee University’s medical school.
“For me, moving here was like coming full circle,” she says. “I grew up in Lanarkshire but my parents had a house in Lundin Links we’d come to in the summertime.
“We’d come to St Andrews to play golf, go to the beach and have ice cream. One of the nice things about living here now is that, as a resident, you get very low cost access to all of St Andrews’ golf courses.”
Mairi spent the past 11 years upgrading and modernising Lawpark House. It has new hardwood floor and fireplaces, along with a replacement boiler.
The ground level kitchen was darker than she would like, so Mairi had floor-to-ceiling windows and a set of french doors installed – flooding the room with light and giving easy access to the patio for summer morning breakfasts.
“We also have planning permission to extend the kitchen out to the end of the patio,” Mairi says. “It would make it much bigger and really capture the sunshine.
The house is set back from Hepburn Gardens behind high walls. It’s also beside Lade Braes, a charming path that leads right into the town’s historic centre and is used by Mairi for exercising her spaniel.
Wrought iron gates open onto the front driveway, which has flagstones and a large garage. Unusually, the garage sprawls over two storeys, with car parking off the driveway and an enormous storage room at garden level below.
The house is spread over three levels, with the front door opening onto the mid level.
Downstairs is the modern kitchen with Aga, a large dining room, and a utility room that runs the width of the house. Off this room is a hidden little wine cellar. The house was extended in Victorian times to incorporate a drawing room on the mid level and an en suite master bedroom upstairs.
Next door to the grand drawing room is a living room which, while still spacious, is a little cosier. “My daughter and her friends tend to use this one while I have my own space next door,” Mairi says.
There’s a double bedroom on the mid level and upstairs are two more double bedrooms and the master, which has dual aspect windows and an en suite that’s bigger than the bedrooms in most modern houses.
The garden is south facing and very secluded. A set of stone steps descends from the patio outside the kitchen down to a stretch of lawn lined with trees and flower beds.
To one edge of the garden is another, much older patio that provides a sheltered and quiet corner to relax in. “It’s a great place to sit with a book and a gin & tonic,” Mairi smiles.
Mairi owns the cottage that adjoins Lawpark House. She previously ran it is as a holiday rental but has spent the last few months renovating, extending and updating it, and plans to move in once the main house is sold.
It gives her an unusual priority when it comes to selling her home.
“I’ll need to be quite particular about who I sell it to,” she chuckles. “After all, we’ll be neighbours.”
Lawpark House is on sale through Thorntons for offers over £750,000.
www.thorntons-property.co.uk