Walled Garden and Coach House, Pitpointie Farmhouse

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

The main house has a large rectangular plan with lower two-storey service wings creating a U-shaped footprint. It is constructed from snecked rubble with ashlar dressings, a slate roof, rusticated quoins, and a base course. The building features mostly single windows, though the south elevation is distinguished by a pair of two-storey canted windows with droved ashlar, aprons, capitalled mullions and a moulded cornice at ground floor level. The glazing includes plate-glass and four-pane panes, with stop-chamfered reveals to the south and chamfered detailing at the stair window.

The roof displays deep eaves with moulded rafter and purlin ends and moulded bargeboards. The corniced ridge has chimney stacks decorated with many original tall cream cans and terracotta ornaments. Rectangular and round cast-iron rainwater goods feature decorative moulding, brackets and hoppers. Elaborate cast-iron finials adorn 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. The door sits at the right return, beneath a gabled canopy with decorative bargeboards supported by Peterhead granite colonettes with bulbous capitals rising from tiered, square chamfered and octagonal droved ashlar bases. A single window sits at ground floor right, with a bipartite window to the left and two windows at first-floor level. A shouldered chimney stack rises from the wallhead through the eaves. The lower two-storey service wing at far left has a central ground-floor door and two dormerheaded windows breaking through the eaves.

The south elevation is three bays wide and symmetrical. Each outer bay contains 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 occupy the recessed second floor, with a gabled and finialled dormer containing a segmental window above.

The east elevation includes a cross-plan timber-framed conservatory on a stone base at the left, with an adjoining brick chimney stack. Ground-floor windows occupy the far left and right positions, with bipartite glazing at right. Two first-floor windows are present, and a blank bay marks the far right.

The north elevation centres on a tripartite and mullioned stair window, with a window at ground and first-floor levels to the right. A lower two-storey wing is advanced at the left, with a slightly later recessed and further advanced addition. A gabled porch occupies the re-entrant angle, with windows at ground level and two dormerheaded windows breaking through the eaves at the left return elevation. A similar wing advances from the right, though without the additional section; its left return elevation shows a blocked door and two windows at ground floor, with a dormerheaded window breaking through the eaves and a ground-floor window in the gable.

The interior retains most original features, including richly decorated plaster cornices, beams, consoles and compartmentalised ceilings in the principal ground-floor rooms. Original chimneypieces are present throughout. The staircase features 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.

A single-storey rectangular-plan game store stands to the southeast of the house. It is constructed of rubble walls and is currently unroofed. The west elevation has a door and the south elevation has a window. The interior contains stone slab shelves. The game store was originally recorded as having a dilapidated thatch roof when the property was listed in 1992.

A flat-coped rubble walled garden adjoins the north of the house, with cast-iron gates set in the south wall. A rectangular-plan building of snecked rubble with a slate roof adjoins the southeast corner and is presumed to be a coach house, featuring a two-leaf door and a single door; the interior has not been examined.

The enclosing wall surrounding the property is constructed of rubble, with squat ashlar gatepiers (possibly cut-down) topped by ball finials and modern wrought-iron gates.

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

The richness of the plasterwork throughout the interior is an important factor in the listing of Pitpointie Farmhouse. The building record was updated in 2021 as part of the Thatched Buildings Listing Review.