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Summary

Description

An L-plan house and shop (formerly the village post office now known as Taigh Na Bhuth), built circa 1870, with later flat-roofed extension in the re-entrant angle. The building comprises a single storey and attic, with an advanced gable on the principal (east) elevation and an M-profile gable to the north elevation. It has pitched slate roofs, coped ashlar masonry stacks, gabled dormers and deep eaves with exposed rafter ends. The walls are constructed of local rubble masonry with squared quoins and window margins, and painted sandstone ashlar cills. The windows are timber sash and case units, predominantly in a four-pane configuration. The building occupies a prominent position on the main road through Lochearnhead. It is built in the estate style of the nearby Edinchip House (LB50340).

The principal elevation is three bays in width with two gabled dormers of different sizes and the advanced gable to the north (formerly containing the shop). The gable has a single-storey canted window with a piended roof and painted ashlar sandstone mullions. According to the 2024 planning approval, the non-original shop door in the south section of the canted window is to be built back up as a matching window and the non-original timber porch of the main entrance in the central bay is to be removed and the door replaced.

Recent images (2022-23) and planning documents (2024) indicate that the interior has been altered and retains little of its historical character, besides a timber staircase.

The building is set slightly back from the A84 behind a tarmacked layby and has a small garden to the rear with a grass area raised on a retaining wall, and mature trees beyond.

The present building appears to have replaced an earlier structure on the site located slightly to the west of the current footprint, which is shown on the First Edition 25 Inch Ordnance Survey map of Perth and Clackmannanshire (Surveyed 1860, published 1866). This map also shows an earlier post office to the south adjoining the schoolhouse. The new L-plan post office (now Taigh Na Bhuth) is marked on the Second Edition 25 Inch map (Revised 1898, published 1899), depicted with an additional outshot to the south-west (since demolished).

The building belonged to the MacGregor family, the local landowners and clan chiefs, and was built in the estate style similar to that of their country house, Edinchip House (LB50340). Several of Lady Helen MacGregor's letters in the family archive refer to the post office.

The setting of the former post office has been altered in the development of the main road through Lochearnhead. At the beginning of the twentieth century there was a front garden bounded by a masonry wall (latterly a picket fence). By the 1970s the shop included an Esso petrol station and the front garden had been tarmacked over and replaced with petrol pumps.

The village shop closed in circa 2023 and the building is now a residential property called Taigh Na Bhuth (2025).

Statement of Special Interest

Lochearnhead, Village Shop on A84 meets the criteria for listing for the following reasons:

• It is a good representative example of a traditional village shop/post office with house which survives largely in its original form to the exterior, and retains the character of its estate style.
• The later alterations and extensions have not adversely affected the historic character and legibility of the building.
• While the setting has changed, the building contributes to the character of the Lochearnhead streetscape and its location near the road means it is prominent in views approaching the village.
• The building – which is an unusually complete example of its building type - illustrates the growing prosperity of Lochearnhead in the 19th century and has social and historic interest for its longstanding role in the community.

The supplementary information in the listed building record was revised in 2025.

References

Bibliography

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