Restoring our pride: The Little House Improvement Scheme marks its 50th anniversary

IF the three little pigs had a construction company, OINK INC, which operated in Scotland during the early 19th century, then the Old Schoolhouse in the town of Logie, near Montrose was the work of that eccentric swine whose favoured construction material was straw.

• The Study by the Mercat Cross in Culross, Fife, is one of many properties restored by the NTS. Picture: Complimentary

If so, it lasted reasonably well,far better than the fable would have us believe, for while others tumbled to the huff and puff of the big bad wolf, this dwelling survived generations of gales and billows of internal hot air.

Situated in garden grounds, overlooking a tributary of the River Esk, this fine example of earth building, a construction method popular during the 19th century which built walls using mud and straw, served the local community as Sunday School and Church for over 150 years, Yet after being abandoned in 1990, the subsequent years of neglect took a heavy toll with the clay fabric brought to the brink of collapse and the house in serious danger of demolition.

You wouldn't think so today. Guests who wander through the front door will instead be welcomed into a charming, if slightly idiosyncratic, home complete with polished wooden floors, open fire place and comfortable four-poster bed.

While it is said that an Englishman's home is his castle, it is an aphorism that equally applies to the Scots and the current tenant, Joe Wishart, is as proud of his home as any of the owners of the castellated properties usually associated with the property's saviour. For the group responsible for rescuing the small schoolhouse are, rather surprisingly, the National Trust for Scotland who as they are keen to point out are just as anxious to save for the nation, the small as the very large.

As Mr Wishart, who is 58 years-old, and as a child attended the Sunday school in what is now his home, said this week: "the schoolhouse was a big part of life on the Logie estate in those days and indeed up until 1990. But then it fell into complete disrepair and only a neighbour alerting the Trust helped to save it."

For the Old Schoolhouse is now among the latest in a long list of properties to be saved by the NTS as part of its Little House Improvement Scheme which marks its 50th anniversary this year.

Like many properties before it, the schoolhouse's structure was maintained and sympathetically restored, in this instance by Arc Chartered Architects, and, as a condition of the Scottish Government grant that assisted, along with funds from Historic Scotland and Angus Council, for the work to be completed, it will be rented out for six years at a reasonable rent before being sold with the proceeds then rolled on to do up the next 'Little House' property, Yet, although it is not an official NTS property, Mr Wishart is delighted to show visitors around: "since moving in last year I get people here all the time who can't get over what has been achieved in the restoration."

The scheme was created in 1960, at a time when great swathes of working class properties were in danger of demolition as a result of 'slum clearance' and the wide ranging powers of local authorities.

Then a group of enlightened designers and architects recognised that the character of Scotland's smaller towns was in danger of being wiped out if properties, some as old as three or four hundred years were allowed to be toppled by the wrecking ball. These were houses first crafted by stonemasons who incorporated European architectural features into their design and were home or place of work to merchant and churchmen, artisans and fishermen and had features such as roofs of red pantiles, and forestairs that led up to the door.

Since the first house was rescued the scheme has operated via a revolving fund model which means that once a house is bought, restored and sold the profits and ploughed back in to finance the next project.

During the past 50 years, nearly 200 buildings, including entire streets have been restored to a value of over 2 million. The original fund started at 20,000 – half each from NTS and the Pilgrim Trust, while the current total is over 1.8 million which allows NTS to embark on restorations and act as a catalyst for finding further grants.

In the historic burghs of Culross in Fife and Dunkeld in Perthshire the Trust acquired a significant number of properties and repaired them for local people to live in at affordable rents.

Among the beneficiaries are John 'Ginger' Robertson, 84, a veteran of the beaches of Normandy who's lived at Sandhaven, Culross with his wife Margaret for 58 years. He said "I was boarded out as a child to the burgh when my parents died and I remember the little houses being derelict, some with squatters in them. In time the Trust got them all restored and I used to watch the local painters who did all the outsides and harlings from a ladder - no scaffold! We're a very independent place Culross - for a while I was on the council and helped the Trust stop the little houses being condemned."

In Dunkeld Nel Boyes lives in little house in Cathedral Street which is popular with tourists, as she explained: "My husband and I have lived in the same house for fifty years. Our son is now 51 but I well remember hanging nappies out on the line. All those years there have been tourists around Dunkeld who have walked into the wee close where we live for a nosey at our little house and we always speak to them. We're even on Google Earth!"

In the early 1960's a number of Polish people came from Germany to Culross after being offered early tenancies in the NTS properties because they were misplaced persons. Stanislaw Tarnawski (61) has lived in one of the little houses in Sandhaven ever since. "As a young boy I loved looking out at the ships especially at night. We were supposed to have gone to America but my mother was ill so Culross it was and we've no regrets. My wife who's Scottish says she could never go back to staying in a town. And yes the tourists love our house as well, they never stop taking pictures!"

The 1970s were an extremely productive period for the scheme both in terms of project numbers and the accolades it received particularly in Fife. In 1975, which was the European Architectural Heritage Year LHIS won a string of awards for individual projects in Anstruther, Crail, Pittenweem and St Monans. One of those award-winning properties was at Castle Street, Crail now the home of Jenny Auchinleck. "I've been here since 1972 when my husband and I, both members of NTS, first saw our home lying derelict and then got the chance to buy – at 10,000 I may say!"

Mrs Auchinleck (71) "I am pleased LHIS succeeded in saving so many houses in the historic burghs of Fife and now all over Scotland. Undoubtedly places like Crail would have had the heart ripped out of them if houses had been demolished. It's great they preserved the architecture of the homes which belonged to working people – weavers and fishermen and so on." Mrs Auchinleck's home bears a marriage lintel above the door which is typical of the period. It reads Robert Lorimer married Elizabeth Carstairs 1712.

By 1980 NTS had restored 140 dwellings and built up the Fund to 140,000. The Trust engaged more and more architectural practices with strong conservation credentials and helped LHIS spread far across the country. Projects have since been completed in Glasgow and the west of Scotland, the Borders, Dumfries & Galloway and Moray. For Terry Levinthal, the director of conservation at the NTS, the scheme has been enormously important."It is about contemporary Scots spending their lives in homes which have been saved for everyone. Most of all it is about the ordinary man and woman being able to live in small yet significant homes. The National Trust for Scotland is not only concerned with the care of large houses but is committed to conserving places across the spectrum for all to enjoy."

Today the project is held up by professional bodies as a model of good practice. Neil Baxter, Secretary & Treasurer of the Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland said: "The National Trust's work in conserving some of Scotland's most significant grand buildings is well known. However particular praise is due for the Little Houses initiative which has seen a crucial aspect of our nation's social history, the modest homes of ordinary people, restored, brought up to modern standards and kept in use.

"This has helped maintain the character of many of Scotland's towns and villages, providing literal touch-stones to connect Scots and tourists to our shared ancestry. It also celebrates the ingenuity of the architects and craft builders who created such an extraordinary heritage - of the ordinary."