Rosemount, Low Askomil, Campbeltown

Rosemount, Low Askomil, Campbeltown

An early 19th-century house of 2 storeys over a raised basement, built to a near-symmetrical rectangular plan with three bays. The main building is flanked by two single-storey pavilions of two bays each, with a former coach-house to the west. The walls are harled with painted ashlar dressings. A band course runs at principal floor level, with a string course and cornice at the first floor, and a lintel course with cornice and blocking course at the eaves.

The south (principal) elevation is symmetrical, with an ashlar stair oversailing the basement and fitted with decorative cast-iron handrails. The entrance door is set within a tall Tuscan columned doorpiece with entablature and blocking course above. The windows throughout are architraved to the principal front and margined elsewhere, all fitted with projecting cills. To the west, a window occupies the principal floor to the left of centre, with further windows at the first floor at the outer left and right. The east elevation has three bays, with the principal floor centre window offset to the right and blind windows at ground and first floors in the right-hand bay. The north (rear) elevation features an addition at ground floor level, with a tall stair window centring the first floor and flanked by gabled and piend-roofed projections to the right and left respectively.

The east wing, formerly a gardener's cottage, is a two-bay single-storey structure with an eaves course, its west elevation centred by a wide-boarded timber door. Adjoining the east of this cottage is an ornate cast-iron conservatory of 9 by 5 bays with a cement-rendered and lined base topped by a stone saddleback cope, with cast-iron quoins at the corners. The cast-iron upper section comprises top-hung 4-pane lights with a decorative profiled gutter at the eaves, a barrel-vaulted roof with clerestorey at the apex, and trefoil-patterned cresting at the gables and ridge, terminated by cross finials. A 4-panel timber entrance door centres the east elevation.

The west wing is two storeys with a lean-to at the west side of the rear elevation, forming an L-shaped plan. Its south elevation is two bays and symmetrical, with a lowered cill at the ground floor bay to the right. The first floor has a cill course and cornice, with the wallhead raised over the bays. Square dies with ball finials break the eaves at the corners.

Throughout the building, windows are timber sash and case, with plate glass to the principal front and sides. The rear elevation has 12 and 4-pane windows. The east wing retains 12-pane timber sash and case windows, while the west wing has modern glazing. The entrance is a 6-panel timber door with a panelled inner door featuring an etched glass upper, flanked by panelled sides with etched glass uppers and a cornice above. A vertically-boarded timber hatch at basement level opens to the left of the entrance. Grey slate roofs are piended to the main house and wings. A piend-roofed canted slate-hung timber dormer with a 4-pane timber sash and case window and plate glass sidelights projects from the left of the main rear pitch, with a small metal-clad dormer to the right carrying a 4-pane timber window.

The interior preserves many original fittings, including Tuscan columns in the entrance hall, a stone staircase with cast-iron balusters and timber handrail, panelled shutters and doors, and decorative plaster cornices and ceiling roses.

The coach-house is a plain structure of roughcast with a slated roof. It is gabled, with a stepped skew at the south surmounted by an urn at the apex and a window in the gablehead with a hoodmould above.

The retaining and boundary walls include an ashlar-coped retaining wall to the rear of the house, with a segmental-arched cellar door at its centre opening to Low Askomil. Stugged ashlar gatepiers surmounted by square droved copes and urns flank the entrance front. Further stugged ashlar gatepiers to Low Askomil are corniced with pyramidal caps and cast-iron gates.