20 Bath Street, Stonehaven

This is a highly individual two-storey and attic villa, constructed before 1899 in Stonehaven. It is an L-plan building with five bays, exhibiting a distinctive design with leaded, ogee-roofed semi-octagonal window bays set within curvilinear gables. The front (south) elevation features a round-arched doorpiece framed by a Gibbsian surround and a semicircular-pedimented dormer window, all set against a decoratively-tiled first-floor mansard. A keystoned Venetian window is also present. The exterior is built of roughly squared rubble stone with ashlar dressings and prominent quoin strips, accompanied by a base course. Voussoirs define the window openings, while stone mullions and raked cills provide architectural detail.

The south elevation is dominated by the central bay at ground level, featuring steps leading to a broad doorpiece with a panelled timber door, flanking lights, and a semicircular fanlight. A swept mansard roof tops the doorpiece, incorporating a dormer window. To the right is a three-light, part-canted window beneath a similar dormer, connected to an advanced, full-height curvilinear gable with an ogee-roofed five-light canted/semi-octagonal window. This window diminishes to a four-light window beneath a swept, ball-finialled pagoda roof. A mirroring curvilinear gable is found to the left of centre. A slightly set-back bay on the right-hand side has a Venetian window at ground level, also accompanied by a pedimented dormer. A low, four-light horizontal dormer window with a central pediment sits between bays three and four. The north elevation displays a variety of features, including a finialled, bellcast-roofed polygonal entrance bay and an advanced wing on the outer left.

Small-pane glazing is incorporated into the timber sash and case windows, with some coloured glass in the Venetian window. The lower slope of the mansard is covered in red fretted tiles, while grey slates cover the upper portion. Corniced and banded ashlar stacks are topped with cans. The building also features ashlar-coped skewes with moulded skewputts.

The interior retains a good decorative scheme, including decorative and moulded plasterwork cornicing, architraved, panelled timber doors, and picture rails. Notably, a fireplace in the dining room was imported from a former maid's bedroom. An encaustic-tiled vestibule leads to a part-glazed, panelled timber screen door with a decoratively-astragalled toplight, opening into a grand stairhall with a parquet floor (installed circa 1940). This hall also contains a fireplace, a dog-leg staircase with timber balusters, urn-finialled square newel posts, and pendant finials. A passage and a heavy, green baize door provide access to a ground floor room on the southwest side. This room features a Venetian window with a carved soffit, flanged columns, fluted reveals, and a corniced timber fire surround.

The property is enclosed by stepped, semicircular-coped, squared rubble boundary walls, with two sets of two-leaf ironwork gates to the south. High coped rubble walls define the boundaries elsewhere.