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Summary

Description

Earlier 17th century, with substantial later 19th century enlargement. 2-storey with exposed basement to rear, 6-bay, rectangular-plan, L-plan tower house to left with 2 Victorian additions to right. Large stair turret to centre, crowstepped gables. Yellow ashlar sandstone partially harled. Roll-moulded ashlar margins to openings.

S (PRINCIPAL) ELEVATION: stone steps at centre left with splayed balustrade, leading to advanced gabled entrance porch, arrow slit to apex. Harled turret behind; W facing window to 2nd storey, continuous, stugged hoodmould, Lombard frieze entablature, dentilled cornice. Conical roof with fish-scale slates, lead finial cap, weathervane to apex. Slightly advanced harled gabled bay to right; stone steps down to basement entrance, pointed arch door. Single window to ground and 1st floor, arrow slit to apex, gablehead chimney. Bay to right with paired narrow windows to ground and single window to 1st storey. Slightly advanced gabled bay to outer right; single window to 1st and 2nd storey, arrow slit to apex, gablehead chimney. Single window at 1st floor in bay to left of centre; recessed bay to left with window to ground and bipartite to 1st floor. Narrow, harled gabled bay of original tower house to outer left; arrow slits to ground and 1st storey, small square window to apex. Recessed gablet behind with small window to apex.

N (REAR) ELEVATION: slightly advanced gabled bay to centre; small window to basement; advanced tripartite windows to ground and 1st storey with stone mullions, stone raked roof. Fenestrated narrow flanking bays. Slightly advanced harled, gabled bay to outer left; 2 windows to ground, window to 1st floor, small window to apex.

2-bay original tower house to outer right; regular fenestration, gables breaking eaves.

E (SIDE) ELEVATION: harled; small window to 1st floor right, window to 2nd floor right; tall, and broad, battered wallhead chimney stack to centre.

W (SIDE) ELEVATION: harled, gabled with gabled wing to right; gabled porch to centre, paired narrow windows, arrow slit at apex, entrance to left return. Small corbelled turret to centre.

Timber sash and case windows of various size. Grey slates, lead flashing, cast-iron rainwater goods. Cavetto moulded coping to stacks. Coped, beak skewputts.

INTERIOR: not seen 2000.

Statement of Special Interest

The pre-Reformation summer residence of the Bishops of Glasgow and Galloway. The original seventeenth century tower house to the far left was much expanded over two phases in the late nineteenth century to treble its original size. Other remnants around the grounds show that it was an estate of some wealth, in the nineteenth century, though not mentioned in contemporary sources such as Groome's Gazetteer, with a large steadings and stables complex, landscaping features and tennis courts, though these are all now in some decay. The house itself, though inhabited, is also falling into considerable disrepair.

References

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