Carmelite House Hotel, 30 Low Street, Banff

Carmelite House Hotel, built around 1753, is a two-storey building with an attic over a raised basement, featuring a five-bay symmetrical front. The facade is made of squared local whinstone with painted ashlar margins, while the rear and return gable are harled, with unpainted ashlar margins at the back. The entrance boasts an artisan Gibbsian keystoned doorpiece with a double-leaf raised and fielded six-panel door, where the upper panels have been removed and replaced with glazing. This entrance is accessed by steps that oversail the raised basement. The building has regular fenestration, with ground floor windows longer than those on the first floor, featuring 12-pane glazing in timber sash and case windows. A wallhead cornice with an angle ball finial is located at the southwest corner, and there are two later 19th-century canted wallhead dormers. The end stacks are moulded and corniced, with the southern stack margined and the northern stack coated with modern harl. The front has flat skews, while the rear features crowstepped skews.

Inside, the entrance and stair hall includes a staircase with turned wooden balusters. The parlour on the right has deep moulded skirting boards and a simple plaster cornice. A fine striated white marble chimneypiece, dating from around 1830, features a carved anthemion at the top of reeded jambs and is superimposed over the original ashlar chimneypiece, which is now painted black. The interior retains original six-panel raised and fielded panelled doors and similar window shutters.

The front garden is enclosed by a low coped wall, where former railings are missing, and features end piers with cast-iron lamp standards.