Lisden, Brechin Road, Kirriemuir

Lisden, Brechin Road, Kirriemuir

A large Baronial villa built in 1872, Lisden is a two-storey building with attic storey arranged on a square plan with symmetrical garden and entrance elevations. The design incorporates Early French Gothic and Scots Jacobean detail throughout. The walls are constructed from stugged and snecked red sandstone rubble with ashlar dressings, and the building is topped with grey slated French pavilion roofs. Decorative fleur-de-lis cast and wrought iron brattishing runs at the wallhead on the south and west elevations, with elaborate iron finials at the main roof apex, turrets, and dormer windows. Bartizans are corbelled out from the ground floor over the angles and raised above the wallhead. A base course and first-floor string course run around the building. Angle turrets feature steep pitched fish-scale slated conical roofs, corbelled out at first-floor level over curved angles of the main block. Windows throughout are single or bipartite with shallow basket-arched lintels and plate glass sash and case glazing.

The west elevation facing the entrance is arranged in three bays with bartizans flanking. A shallow advanced pilastered central bay carries a parapet with a small sculptured strapwork pediment and flanking Jacobethan style urn finials as antefixae above the parapet wallhead. At ground floor the central bay is masked by a flat-roofed single-storey entrance porch. The porch features deeply curved recessed panels at the angles and a parapet with triangular strapwork pediment and curved strapwork motif antefixae over the curved angles. A mullioned and transomed west-facing bipartite window lights the porch interior. The entrance itself is located in the north flank and comprises a lugged and bolection-moulded doorcase with simplified Jacobethan consoled frieze and cornice, containing a six-panel door.

The south elevation displays three bays at ground floor with tripartite windows in the outer bays, and five bays at first-floor level with single-light windows. A projecting tower at the centre is semi-circular at ground level and corbels to square form at first floor, topped with a French pavilion roof. An elaborate Jacobean style first-floor window with open wallhead pediment distinguishes this tower. Fleur-de-lis brattishing runs at the wallhead above a pair of barge-boarded dormer-headed windows with timber nook-shaft detail at the jambs. To the right, an enclosing wall of the stable court buildings extends, originally featuring a lean-to conservatory which was removed in 1991.

A contemporary stable court of single-storey buildings lies to the east, constructed from stugged and snecked red sandstone rubble with panelled and corniced stacks. An L-plan range attaches to the house, with a roughly U-plan single-storey and loft range to the east enclosing the courtyard. Irregular greenhouses and a kennel enclosure are attached to the east side.

The interior retains much of its original decorative scheme. The entrance hall features a cream sandstone chimney-piece with squat Renaissance-style pilaster stiles, elaborately carved frieze, and a raised central tablet carved with harvest motif. Cornices throughout, some with elaborately carved mutule-bracketed plasterwork, and centre roses to the principal rooms. The billiard room displays full-height pine panelling with a fireplace flanked by full-height turned timber detached colonnettes, and retains a variety of original light fittings. The main dog-leg stair features turned timber balusters and rises beneath a coved-ceiling rectangular lantern. A servant's stair with cast-iron balusters provides secondary access.

A pair of gatepiers stands at the entrance, each a simple square-plan monolith with chamfered angles, lacking capitals but topped with Egyptic triangular pedimented form and incised fan-like motif.