Timber piers, Pitpointie Farmhouse

Pitpointie Farmhouse is a large two-storey farmhouse dated 1883, built for George Willsher, a wine and spirit dealer of Dundee whose initials (GEW) appear on the west elevation. The gabled canopy at the entrance porch is probably slightly later and is attributed to Charles Edward and Thomas S Robertson. The farmhouse replaced an earlier farmhouse and steading on the site, shown in a plan dated 1759.

The main house has a rectangular plan with gabled form and lower two-storey service wings creating a U-shaped layout. It is constructed of stugged snecked rubble with ashlar dressings, a slate roof, a rusticated quoin base course, and mostly single windows. The south elevation features a pair of two-storey canted windows with droved ashlar and aprons, capitalled mullions and moulded cornice at ground floor, plate-glass and four-pane glazing, and stop-chamfered reveals, with chamfered reveals at the stair window. The building has deep eaves with moulded rafter and purlin ends and moulded bargeboards. Ridge chimney stacks are corniced with many original tall cream cans and terracotta decoration. Rectangular and round cast-iron rainwater goods feature decorative moulding, brackets and hoppers. Elaborate cast-iron finials decorate the gables and dormerheads, though some are missing.

The west (entrance) elevation features a single-storey gabled porch with a window advanced from the main house at right and a door at the right return. The gabled canopy is supported by Peterhead granite colonettes with bulbous capitals on tiered, square chamfered and octagonal droved ashlar bases, with decorative bargeboards. A single window occupies the ground floor to the right, with an initialled panel marked 'GEW' at first-floor level. A bipartite window sits at ground-floor left with two windows at first floor. A shouldered chimney stack rises from the wallhead through the eaves. A lower two-storey service wing at the far left has a door at ground-floor centre and two dormerheaded windows breaking through the eaves.

The south elevation is three bays wide and symmetrical. The outer bays each consist of a two-storey canted window with a facetted roof. The centre bay has a tripartite window at ground floor with a corbelled cill and pilastered margins and mullions, topped by a corniced parapet with decorative cast-iron balustrade. Two windows sit in the recessed second floor, with a gabled and finialled dormer containing a segmental window.

The east elevation contains a cross-plan timber-framed conservatory on a stone base at the left with an adjoining brick chimney stack, a window at ground-floor far left, and a window and bipartite at ground-floor right with two windows at first floor. A blank bay occupies the far right.

The north elevation features a tripartite and mullioned stair window at centre with a window at ground and first floors to the right. A lower two-storey wing advances at the left with a slightly later recessed and further advanced addition, a gabled porch at the re-entrant angle, windows at the left and two dormerheaded windows breaking through the eaves at the left return elevation, and a ground-floor window at the gable. A similar wing advances at the right but without an addition; it has a blocked door and two windows at ground-floor left return elevation, a dormerheaded window breaking through the eaves, and a ground-floor window at the gable.

The interior retains most original features. The principal ground-floor rooms contain richly decorated plaster cornices, beams, consoles and compartmentalised ceilings. Original chimneypieces survive, and the stairs feature carved balusters with a tapestry affixed to the wall and a stained-glass window. The bathroom contains an unusual frieze of probably stencilled aquatic scenes. The richness of the plasterwork is an important factor in the listing.

A single-storey rectangular-plan game store lies to the southeast of the house, constructed of rubble walls and now unroofed. It has a door in the west elevation and a window in the south elevation. The interior contains stone slab shelves. The building was listed in 1992 with a dilapidated thatch roof; the record was updated in 2021.

A rubble enclosing wall surrounds the property with squat ashlar gatepiers (possibly cut-down) topped with ball finials and modern wrought-iron gates. A flat-coped rubble walled garden lies to the north of the house with cast-iron gates at the south wall. A rectangular-plan building of snecked rubble and slate adjoins the southeast corner and is presumed to be a coach house, with a two-leaf door and a single door (interior not seen).

Two widely spaced, round-section, ogival-capped gatepiers with adjoining rubble quadrant walls mark the entrance to the farmhouse and steading at the south. Two partly chamfered, square-section timber piers with ball finials stand at the west entrance to the farmhouse and steading. These timber piers may derive from the original Dundee and Newtyle Railway, which opened in 1831 but was re-routed through Dronley in 1860. The railway originally passed hard by Pitpointie farm and crossed the public road at approximately this point.