Description
Loch Lomond And Trossachs National Park Planning Authority
Dalkenneth is an asymmetrical 2-storey, 3-bay English Parsonage style house, dating from 1883, by the architect G T Ewing. Set in a prominent position on the N Loch Earn road, the house sits roughly equi-distant between the villages of Lochearnhead and St Fillans. The house is amongst the best examples of a local building style characterised by contrasting grey sandstone walls with red ashlar dressings. The house demonstrates some fine carved stonework in the dressings and hoodmoulds, and is distinctive for its tall chimneystacks. A good example of the work of an architect who had a great influence on the area in the later 19th century.
Entrance is by way of the E elevation, with a shallow pointed-arched doorway to the far right of the ground floor. The doorway has a stop-chamfered, roll-moulded architrave and is hoodmoulded with rose and thistle motifs to the labels. A rectangular hoodmoulded, 3-light window sits to the left of the doorway. The left-hand bay of the E elevation is gabled with a 3-light, trefoil headed window at 1st floor, and a canted 4-light bay window off-centre left at ground floor. This bay window wraps around the corner to meet a tall, advanced chimneystack on the S (garden) elevation.
In the centre of the S elevation at first floor is a distinctive oriel window breaking eaves level. The left bay is gabled, with 3-light, hoodmoulded windows at ground and 1st floor and a tall gablehead stack.
A 2-storey bay window dominates the W elevation, with 4-light windows at ground and 1st floor, and additional single lights to returns. A tall wallhead chimney sits in the centre of the elevation.
On the N (rear) elevation a 3-light, lead-paned, red and yellow stained glass stair window sits off-centre left at 1st floor. Single-storey service accommodation extends to the N.
Interior: entry through main door directly into centre of house. A wooden winder staircase is lit from the N by the stained-glass stair window. On the S wall of the entry hall, a fireplace remains with timber panelling to the wall above. In the SE corner, a room enjoys views to the SE and S through the bay window and another fireplace remains in-situ, whilst the remainder of the S side of the ground floor is taken up by the principal reception room. To the W side of the house is a dining room which in turn leads into the single-storey kitchen on the N side of the house. Some simple banded cornicing is retained in the S reception rooms, but the remainder of the interior has been altered and modernised.
Gatepiers: tall, circular plan random rubble gatepiers; rubble cornice with conical caps. Modern (late 20th century) security gates attached with steel rings.
Materials: squared, grey sandstone rubble; red sandstone ashlar to dressings; rusticated red sandstone quoins. Timber, plate glass, sash and case windows. Timber bracketed eaves; banded timber bargeboards. Wooden, panelled double doors with timber boarded infill. Red clay roof tiles. Tall, corniced, grey sandstone stacks with red ashlar quoins. Conical, capped cans (some late 20th century).
Statement of Special Interest
Dalkenneth was built in 1883 for a local minister (possibly from Lochearnhead) named Rev H J Graham. It was built on land donated by the Drummond Estate, by the estate architect G T Ewing. Ewing's work is evident throughout the region, especially in St Fillans, where he designed Dundurn Parish Church and several houses and villas, and at St Angus's Chapel in Lochearnhead. Drawings for Dalkenneth continue to be held by the Drummond Estate Offices, at Muthill. It is thought that in the past the house was used as a school, but no documentary evidence can be found of this. A stable block for Dalkenneth previously sat to the W of the house, now rebuilt as a modern dwelling. To the immediate E of the house there is also a building dating from 1987 by Gaia Architects, built as a recording studio for the rock group Simple Minds, who owned Dalkenneth in the late 20th century.