ITEM NO 79A CAT: B 129 HIGH STREET, Group with Items: LODGE DALKEITH
Map Ref: NT 3325 Date, of Listing: 12.10.2000 KILWINNING NO 10 6751 (MASONIC LODGE)

Currie, Scott & Young, 1766; substantial additions 1939. Single storey, 4-bay, rectangular-plan lodge. Sandstone rubble. harled in places, polished raised margins.

SE (ENTRANCE) ELEVATION: obscured by harled, flat-roofed 1939 additions.

NE ELEVATION: not seen 2000.

NW ELEVATION: obscured to left by harled addition; window to flanking  bay to left. infilled with brick.

SW ELEVATION: Harled; doorway to bay to left, with sandstone infill ; 3 regularly placed Window openings to right, all with harled infills; piend-roofed addition to outer right.Window openings to lodge predominately infilled. Piened graded grey slate roof with lead ridges and inset louvered ventilators. PVCu and cast iron rainwater goods.

INTERIOR: rectangular-plan principal room; boarded floor covers original flooring; panelled timber door NE side, flanked to left by small round-arched recess (supposedly to bottomless pit) depressed-arched niche flanking doorway to right. housing statue of St. Andrew, by Sir John steele1827. stained glass memorial window opposite; segmental-arched niche to SE, with hexagonal sounding board oversailing; coombed ceiling with plaster cornices. Datestone from lodge,reading 1766" set in wall of 1939 addition.

REFRENCES: J. Lesslie, PLAN OF DALKEITH, 1770: J. Wood.PLAN OP DALKEITII, 1822: 1st (1853) attd 2nd (1893) EDITION OS MAPS: L0DGE DALKEJTH KILWINNING NO 10: A BRIEF HISTORY; Mr J Fitzhugh Millar, "lodging a correction",COUNTRY LIFE, 18 May 2000.

NOTES: Dalkeith Masonic Lodge is one of the oldest purpose built lodges in the world. J F Millar (country life, see above) points out until recently St John,s lodge Newport, Rhode Island, built in 1759 by Peter Harrison (but not consecrated until 1803), predated the Dalkeith lodge, however it has been recently sold to be converted into a house leaving dalkeith to hold the title. Minute books for Dalkeith Masonic Lodge date back to 1764, when the first plans to erect a lodge began on the anniversary of St John the Evangelist, (27 December 1764). The site of the lodge was in the garden of Mr Barclays school, which belonged to a William Hardy, who agreed to feu an area of his garden for 12s 6d per year. The building was consecrated on 24 August 1767, although it was finished the year before. Dalkeith Masonic Lodge has been substantially extended, the onginal meeting room survives largely intact. The wooden statue of St Andrew in the meeting room is by Sir John Steele (b. 1804), who was Sculptor to Queen Victoria between 1838 and 1891. The statue was originally at the door of the North British Fire and Life Insurance Company in Princes Street (at Hanover Street), which was burned down, the statue was subsquently gifted to the lodge by Sir James Walker Drummond.