The Gables, 30 The Mall, Montrose

Cranes Meadow, located at 28 The Mall in Montrose, is an early 20th-century semi-detached house that features elements from the early 19th century. This two-storey building is designed in a mock half-timbered style with Old English details, and it is adjoined to the south by an earlier single-storey cottage. The house has a pink sandstone base course and a cill band at the first floor, with brick construction elsewhere, accented by similarly coloured tile hanging on the canted bays and contrasting red tiled roofs. It includes timber mullions and transoms, while the cottage is made of local clay brick with a slate roof.

The west elevation consists of three bays. The tall gable on the outer left is slightly advanced and features a broad canted full-height window, with the gablehead jettied over a cant supported by timber brackets, and a mask corbel at the apex. The centre bay is recessed, containing a pentice-roofed porch with an entrance to the left, which has a timber corbelled archhead and glazed three-light windows in the centre and to the right. A canted window emerges at the first floor, topped with a polygonal roof that breaks the eaves of the main pitch and is linked to the right by another three-light window that also breaks the eaves. The outer right bay has a recessed door at ground level to the left, featuring a round-arched boarded door with decorative hinges and a small porthole window, alongside leaded glazing in the sidelights and a decorative fanlight above. To the right is a broad canted window, with a three-light window above, and a diminutive gablehead similar to the outer left bay but without brackets. The single-storey cottage range extends to the outer right, with a gable end that jetties at the head and bears a fire insurance plaque dated 1708, which has been moved from an earlier property.

The north elevation of the single-storey range has paired windows in the centre, bridged above by a corbelled gablehead, with flanking windows, the one to the right projecting as a triangular cant.

The east elevation features a central projection that is divided internally. The windows throughout are timber casement types with small-pane upper panels, and decorative rainwater hoppers are present. The building has red brick wallheads and mutual gable stacks, with clay ridge finials on the piended principal roof.

Inside, the property appears to retain good original detailing, including re-used panelling that may have been taken from a ship. The boundary wall is a low bull-faced sandstone garden wall at the front, topped with ashlar coping.