The Hermitage, Baird Street, Stonehaven

The Hermitage is an interesting Free-style Edwardian villa built around 1903, located on Baird Street in Stonehaven. The house features mock half-timbering, a stylised Gibbsean doorpiece, a timber verandah and balcony, and V-section oriel windows supported by timber brackets. It has a two-storey and attic structure with a stepped asymmetrical plan, harled and painted walls accented by contrasting ashlar dressings. The base course is made of deep rock-faced rubble, and the building has long and short quoins, as well as a keystoned and voussoired Venetian window with stone mullions.

On the south elevation, there is a recessed gable to the left of the centre, featuring a doorpiece set diagonally in the southwest re-entrant angle. This includes two-leaf part-glazed timber doors with vertically-boarded lower panels and decoratively-glazed oval upper panels, along with a flat-roofed, decoratively-glazed canted window above. There are single windows to the outer left at both the ground and first floors, and a four-light V-section oriel window at the centre of the gablehead above. To the right, an advanced gable has a tall bipartite window on the ground floor and a small broad tripartite window above.

The west elevation has a timber verandah at ground level, which includes a four-light bow-window on the right and a six-light near rectangular-plan window with V-section centre lights, advanced in bay at the outer left. The first floor features a full-width timber balcony with decoratively-turned balusters, irregular fenestration beneath a swept slated roof, and a Venetian window on the outer left.

The east elevation displays a variety of elements in its gabled five-bay design, including V-section windows at the gableheads.

The interior, which was not seen in 2005, is described as almost complete and includes high-quality panelling and beamed ceilings. The villa features a variety of small-paned timber sash and case, and casement windows. The roof is covered with grey slates and has terracotta ridges, with coped, whitewashed stacks and cans. The plain timber bargeboarding has exposed rafter ends.

Additionally, there is a timber summerhouse, which was not seen in 2005, featuring a door and three windows. The property is enclosed by semicircular-coped rubble boundary walls that have ball-finialled square-section ashlar gatepiers.