Overtoun House
| Overtoun House | |
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Overtoun House
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| Location | Milton, West Dunbartonshire, Scotland |
| Coordinates | 55°57′10″N 4°31′31″W / 55.9526854°N 4.5253104°WCoordinates: 55°57′10″N 4°31′31″W / 55.9526854°N 4.5253104°W |
| Built | 1862 |
| Built for | James White |
| Architect | James Smith |
| Architectural style(s) | Scots Baronial |
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Listed Building – Category A
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| Designated | 3 March 1971 |
| Reference no. | 24907 |
| Criteria | Historical Architectural |
| Designated | 2007 |
 Location of Overtoun House in West Dunbartonshire
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Overtoun House is a 19th-century country house and estate in West Dunbartonshire, Scotland. Situated on a hill overlooking the River Clyde, it is two kilometres (1.2 mi) north of the village of Milton and three kilometres (1.9 mi) east of the town of Dumbarton. The house, an example of Scottish Baronial architecture, was built in the 1860s, and was donated to the people of Dumbarton in 1938. It was subsequently a maternity hospital, and now houses a Christian centre. The house is protected as a category A listed building, while the grounds are included in the Inventory of Gardens and Designed Landscapes in Scotland.
Overtoun Bridge, an arched approach bridge over the Overtoun Burn within the estate, has gained media attention because of the unusually large number of dogs that have reportedly leaped to their deaths there.
In 1859, James White, a retired lawyer and a co-owner of the J & J White Chemical Works in Rutherglen, bought Overtoun Farm with the purpose of building a mansion there. He intended for it to be a country retreat, and initially acquired 900 acres (360 ha); he soon increased this to 2,000 acres (810 ha). White hired the Glasgow-based architect James Smith (1808–1863) (father of the murder suspect Madeleine Smith) to design and construct the house. A farmhouse on the site was demolished to make way for the mansion. Overtoun House was built between 1860 and 1863, though Smith died before work was completed, and the house was completed by one of his partners. White's family began living in the mansion in 1862. It is recorded that the grounds were laid out by Mr C Kemp of Birkenhead, which is thought to refer to the landscape gardener Edward Kemp (1817–1891), who was superintendent of Birkenhead Park for Joseph Paxton.
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