Balnacraig House

Balnacraig House is a 2-storey farmhouse with attic dating from 1673, subsequently enlarged and altered. The main block is a symmetrical 5-bay structure with 2 single-storey 18th-century wings arranged to form a U-plan open courtyard. The exterior is harled with stone margins and features a rubble base course with chamfered reveals.

The principal south elevation is symmetrical with a gableted boarded timber porch to the ground floor of the central gabled bay. The porch contains a panelled timber door flanked by 2 single-pane windows. The remaining bays have regular fenestration to the ground and first floors. The attic gablehead of the centre bay contains a single segmental-arched window frame with a 6-pane window. The west and east wings are advanced to left and right respectively.

The east elevation is symmetrical and gabled, with a blank wall punctuated by 2 small infilled openings to the attic floor. The north elevation is also symmetrical with a single window to the centre and 3 skylights to the attic floor. The west elevation is asymmetrical and gabled, with a window off-centre to the left of the ground floor and a lean-to addition to the right containing a window and 2 2-pane skylights.

The west wing has a south elevation with a gabled roof, an off-centre window to the left of the ground floor, and 2 infilled windows to the attic floor. Its east elevation features 3 regularly placed windows and a skylight to the attic floor. The north elevation is gabled with a lean-to obscuring the left of the ground floor and a stone cheesepress to the right. The west elevation is asymmetrical with 3 bays: a glazed boarded timber door flanked to the right by 2 windows forms the centre bay of the ground floor; a lean-to addition to the right has a boarded timber door with letterbox fanlight; and a bipartite window sits in the flanking bay to the left. The attic floor features a flat-roofed tripartite window to the centre bay and 2 piend-roofed canted dormers to the flanking bays.

The east wing's south elevation is gabled and blank. Its east elevation is asymmetrical with 3 bays: a glazed boarded timber door flanked to the left by a 2-pane window occupies the centre bay of the ground floor; bipartite windows are positioned in flanking bays to left and right; 3 windows with catslide roofs break the eaves to the attic floor. A single-storey structure adjoins to the outer right, containing 3 boarded timber doors to the bays on the right side, flanked to the left by a 4-pane window, with 2 boarded timber doors and 2 windows on the left return. The north elevation features a harled brick flue advanced to the centre, flanked by 2 pointed-arched windows, and a boarded timber gate to the ground floor leading to the courtyard. The west elevation is asymmetrical with 3 irregularly placed windows to the ground floor, a boarded timber gate to the outer left, and a window flanked to the right by a tripartite window to the attic floor.

The roof is a replacement mansard with graded grey slate and stone and terracotta ridges. Stone skews feature moulded skewputts. The gablehead stacks are corniced and harled with circular and octagonal cans. Cast-iron rainwater goods are fitted throughout.

The interior was not seen at the time of survey in 1998.

Random rubble boundary walls with flat coping extend to the west and east of the house, with a lean-to structure built into the east wall. Low rubble walls advanced to the south have 2 V-jointed square-plan gatepiers with spherical finials surmounting each wall, and spherical finial-capped uprights line the top of the walls.

The fenestration is predominantly 4-pane timber sash and case windows.