Wedding venue Gilmerton House to turn listed building into toilet block for guests

A stately home used for weddings has been given the go-ahead to turn a listed outbuilding into a toilet block for guests.

The Category A listed Gilmerton House at Athelstaneford, East Lothian, was granted permission to turn old laundry buildings on its land into a new function venue as part of its wedding business last year.

Now owners of the historic mansion, which has a tragic past, have been given the green light to turn an underused outbuilding into loos for people attending events.

Separate listed building consent has also been applied for as the building is listed as part of the estate.

Approving the change of use of the outbuilding to toilets, planners said Gilmerton House, as a wedding venue, has an existing leisure use in the countryside.

They said: “The proposed change of use of the storage building to form toilet facilities for guests would support the existing event use of Gilmerton House.”

They added: “The proposed change of use and alteration of the existing building would provide a new lease of life to this listed building, which is presently an underused storage area, and if left would be likely to deteriorate in condition.

“The proposed development would bring the building back into a long term and sustainable use.”

The historic mansion is a popular wedding venue with a past which saw its family involved in one of the first murder trials in Scotland where the insanity defence saved the killer from the gallows.

The house, which has been in the Kinloch family since Georgian times, was the scene of the crime when Archibald Kinloch shoot his elder brother Sir Francis in the chest in 1795 after a night of revelry.

It is said that Archibald had returned from serving in the military in St Lucia with deteriorating health which had affected his sanity.

At his trial his lawyers successfully pleaded temporary insanity in one of the earliest recorded defences of this kind.

He escaped the gallows and was instead sentenced to house arrest under the care of his family dying a few years later at home.