The Stables, Muchalls Castle

The Stables at Muchalls Castle, designed by Walker and Duncan of Aberdeen in 1894 and incorporating earlier work, is a single-storey and attic L-plan coach house and stables set into a sloping site. The principal range is constructed of coursed pink rubble granite with droved dressings, while the lower range to the north is harled and has a slate roof. The building features segmental-arched openings.

On the south elevation, there are three bays of stables on the outer left, with a central 2-leaf boarded door (the right leaf is split) and single windows on either side. Above the openings are segmental-arched ventilators. To the outer right, there is a harness room and two carriage arches, which have a boarded door and a single window for the harness room, along with 2-leaf doors for the carriage arches. A rubble retaining wall and a pump are adjacent to this elevation.

The north elevation has a lower wing projecting to the outer right, with a door to the hayloft that breaks the eaves to the right of center, and a gabled doorway to the attic on the outer left. Ventilators are irregularly dispersed across this elevation.

On the west elevation, there is a gable with a hayloft door to the right, and a rubble boundary wall adjoining to the outer right. The lower harled wing to the left features a window.

The east elevation is built into rising ground and is blank. It showcases a variety of glazing patterns, including 4-pane glazing with timber ventilators in the stables. The roof is red tiled with a coped ridge stack topped by a weather vane, and there are two catslide dormers over the coach house. Decorative terracotta ridging and a cast-iron ventilator with an ogival roof add to the architectural interest.

Inside, the stables feature boarded trevises with cast-iron frames, loose boxes of a similar design, integral troughs and hecks, a decorative iron ventilator grille, and timber harness pegs.