Gatepiers and walls, Pitpointie Farmhouse

Pitpointie Farmhouse is a substantial two-storey gabled farmhouse built in 1883 for George Willsher, a wine and spirit dealer from Dundee, whose initials (GEW) appear on the west elevation. The design is attributed to architects Charles Edward and Thomas S Robertson, with the gabled canopy at the entrance porch probably added slightly later.

The main house adopts a U-plan with lower two-storey service wings flanking a large rectangular-plan central block. It is constructed in stugged snecked rubble with ashlar dressings, including a rusticated base course and rusticated quoins. The roof is slate with deep eaves featuring moulded rafter and purlin ends and moulded bargeboards. The corniced ridge chimney stacks retain many original tall cream cans and terracotta decorations.

Windows are predominantly single lights, with notable exceptions: a pair of two-storey canted windows at the south elevation feature droved ashlar with aprons, capitalled mullions, and moulded cornices at ground floor level, with plate-glass and four-pane glazing. The reveals to the south are stop-chamfered, while the stair window features chamfered reveals. Rectangular and round cast-iron rainwater goods with decorative moulding, brackets, and hoppers are installed throughout. The gables and dormerheads carry elaborate cast-iron finials, though some are missing.

The west elevation displays a single-storey gabled porch with a window advanced from the main house, a door at the right return, and a gabled canopy with decorative bargeboards supported by Peterhead granite colonettes with bulbous capitals set on tiered, square-chamfered and octagonal droved ashlar bases. A single window sits at ground floor to the right, with a bipartite window to the left. The first floor has two windows. A shouldered chimney stack rises from the wallhead through the eaves. The lower service wing at the far left contains a centrally placed ground-floor door with two dormerheaded windows breaking through the eaves.

The south elevation is three bays wide and symmetrical. The outer bays each contain a two-storey canted window with a facetted roof. The centre bay features 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 finalled dormer containing a segmental window above.

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 sits at ground floor far left, with another window and a bipartite window at ground floor right, two windows at first floor, and a blank bay at far right.

The north elevation centres on a tripartite and mullioned stair window, with a window at ground and first floors to the right. Two lower two-storey service wings are advanced at the left and right, each with a gabled porch at the re-entrant angle. The left wing has a slightly later recessed and further advanced addition. Windows and dormerheaded windows breaking through the eaves occur at multiple points along this elevation, with ground-floor windows at the gables.

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

A single-storey rectangular-plan game store to the southeast of the house is constructed of rubble walls and is now unroofed. It has a door in the west elevation and a window in the south elevation, with interior stone slab shelves. When originally listed in 1992, this building was recorded as having a dilapidated thatch roof.

A flat-coped rubble walled garden lies north of the house, with cast-iron gates at the south wall. A rectangular-plan building of snecked rubble with slate roof adjoins the southeast corner and is presumed to be a coach house, with a two-leaf door and single door (interior not accessible).

The enclosing wall is of rubble construction with squat ashlar gatepiers (possibly cut-down) topped with ball finials and modern wrought-iron gates. At the south entrance to the farmhouse and steading stand two widely spaced round-section ogival-capped gatepiers with adjoining rubble quadrant walls. At the west entrance are two partly chamfered square-section timber piers with ball finials.

Pitpointie replaced an earlier farmhouse and steading documented in a drawing dated 1759. The Dundee and Newtyle Railway, opened in 1831, originally passed close to Pitpointie farm but was re-routed through Dronley in 1860. The timber piers at the west entrance may derive from the original Dundee and Newtyle Railway crossing at approximately this location.

The listing record was updated in 2021 as part of the Thatched Buildings Listing Review.