Hinton House

Hinton House is a country house dating to 1900, designed by James Morris of Ayr for Charles Cunninghan Church J.P. It was constructed in ironstone ashlar with a plain tile roof and stone end and ridge stacks. The house has a double-depth plan with two storeys and an attic, presented as a six-window range.

The main entrance is on the right side of the building, featuring fine ornamental hinges and a four-centred arched head within a two-storey porch. The porch has an Elizabethan-style round arched doorway with a small console keyblock, framed by Doric pillars and arched niches to the canted sides. Above the doorway is a four-light chamfered mullion window with single-light windows to the canted sides. A balustraded parapet tops the front, and three-light round arched windows are set into the ground floor either side, with the arches supported by balusters with capitals. To the right are four-light chamfered mullion windows with hood moulds to both the ground and first floors, a similar six-light window to the ground floor and a five-light window above. Further to the left are a pair of three-storey gabled bay windows with three tiers of four-light mullion windows, either side of a four-light mullion window with a hood mould to the ground floor, and a similar three-light window to the first floor. A stone panel incorporating the Church crest—a demi-greyhound holding a shamrock with the motto “VIRTUTE” below—is set between these windows. To the far left is a two-storey canted bay window facing the garden, with one-light windows and a coped parapet. Architectural details include a chamfered plinth, flush quoins, stone eaves, a coped stone gable with kneelers and finials, three 20th-century roof dormers, and a weather vane to the apex of the hipped roof of the bay window to the far left. Leaded-light windows are present throughout. Rainwater heads are dated 1900.

A water tower is located to the rear left, with the ground floor constructed partly of brick, two stages and a low octagonal top stage with a stone coped parapet, partly crenellated; the rest of the service wing has been demolished. The interior includes a four-centred arched stone fireplace to the hall, a stone bolection-moulded fireplace to the sitting room, and a panelled dining room. The design for Hinton House was James Morris' diploma work for the Royal Scottish Academy. Original elevation and plan drawings deposited with the Academy reveal a more ambitious design for the left garden side elevation, with subsequent slight changes made during the building’s execution. Hinton House represents one of the few buildings Morris designed in England.