Walled Garden, Geilston House, Cardross

Geilston House, Cardross

Geilston House is a rambling, asymmetrical mansion dating from 1766 with significant additions and alterations made in the later 18th century and mid 19th century. The building forms an approximate L-plan, with a single-storey block added to the outer right in the mid 19th century. It is constructed of harled and cement-rendered masonry.

The entrance elevation on the north-west presents a single-storey block with a crowstepped, finialled gabled entrance porch advanced off-centre to the left. The porch features a moulded door surround and a narrow flanking window. To the right, a half-piend roofed block projects with three narrow, closely spaced windows. A lean-to block occupies the outer left corner. The long axis of the main house is advanced to the outer left.

The south-west elevation reveals the building's complex construction history. A long, cemented harl facade contains a later 18th-century 2-storey, 3-bay house to the right, with a taller 2-bay block to the left. The older house displays three broadly-spaced, symmetrically disposed bays with a door at the centre ground floor, now blocked as a window. First-floor windows sit directly below the eaves. Two 8-pane cast-iron rooflights pierce the roof. The taller 2-bay block has symmetrically disposed bays; its inner ground-floor window is blocked as a smaller opening.

The north-west elevation features a balustraded screen wall enclosing a courtyard, with a segmental-headed archway at centre and a modern boarded door. Flanking segmental-headed openings flank the archway, that to the left being blind, with keystones throughout. Behind this screen stands a 2-storey house with crowstepped gables flanking a narrow centre bay; blocked openings appear in the right gable.

The south-east elevation displays seven bays asymmetrically disposed, with a blank bay at centre surmounted by a gablet breaking the eaves and a tall coped wallhead stack. Closely flanking barred windows and a window to the outer right are present. Three closely spaced bays occupy the outer left, with a window and blank outer bays, another gablet breaking eaves with wallhead stack above.

The north-east elevation presents a 2-storey block to the outer right with four symmetrically disposed windows. An infill rubble wall to the left has a blank rubble gable. The left return features a bipartite window at ground level and two closely spaced bipartite windows at first floor. The end wall of the single-storey block projects to the outer left, with windows topped by a gablet breaking the eaves and a stack at centre.

Throughout, windows are 8-pane, 12-pane sash and case, or 9-pane cast-iron rooflights. The roof is covered in grey slate with lead flashings and moulded cement ridge work. Tall coped wallhead stacks with circular cans rise from the single-storey block. Cement-rendered, coped stacks appear on the main block, decorated at ridge and gablehead.

The interior is accessed via a 6-panelled door with a 10-pane fanlight that opens into a long corridor running north-east to south-west. A square vestibule contains a large door framed by consoles, above which sit three pilaster-flanked keystoned niches. The drawing room features plain chimneypieces with basket-arched, pilaster-flanked and keystoned recesses. 6-panelled doors with niches above and plain cornices and plasterwork characterise the interior. The older 2-storey house contains low-ceilinged rooms.

To the north-east of the house lies a walled garden dated 1797. Constructed of rubble masonry with harl-pointing and slab coping, this large enclosure contains a substantial lean-to greenhouse of 19th-century date by the builders Makenzie and Moncur along the north wall. A half-piend-roofed storage shed stands in the north-west corner, obscuring a former arched window with a datestone inscribed 1797, now infilled with a wooden casement window. Outside the garden walls runs a coursed burn with weirs that collects in a pond. Cannons are placed within the garden. To the south of the house is a small woodland walk with a well and a droved ashlar round-headed wallhead inscribed "10th March 1863 ITG and HEG".