Craig Ailey, Cove

Craig Ailey, Cove

A Lombardic villa designed by Alexander Thomson in 1850. The building is a two-storey asymmetrical structure with a rectangular plan and gabled roofline, constructed from whinstone and sandstone rubble with stugged rusticated margins and dressings. Features include colonnette mullions, a deep striated base course, moulded string course, projecting bracketed eaves, and round-arched windows throughout.

The southeast elevation, which faces the entrance, forms an L-plan with three bays. A gable sits to the outer right, topped with a belvedere tower and a porch positioned in the re-entrant angle to the left. A piend-roofed porch projects to the outer left with steps, a rusticated die decorated with lions, and a door framed by Doric pilasters with a keystone and two-leaf timber door beneath an eaves band. A round-arched arcade of seven narrow lights with colonnette mullions runs along the left return. The three-stage tower is slightly recessed to the right, featuring a full-height round-arched recess containing a narrow bipartite round-headed window at ground level and a large round-headed border-glazed stair window above, with a whinstone relieving arch and hoodmould. A moulded string course sits above. The upper stage has a stylised machicolated corbel course with three small rectangular windows directly under the eaves. A lower gabled block advances slightly to the outer right, with a large round-arched bipartite window set into a recessed rectangular panel and a round-arched window in the gablehead.

The southwest elevation forms an L-plan with an advanced gable to the left and the porch and tower in the re-entrant angle to the right. The gable incorporates a bow window on a deep, battered base of vertically-laid masonry with a projecting bracketed roof and a round-arched window at first floor level. The left return of the porch extends to the outer right, with the tower rising behind.

The northwest elevation displays three bays. A single-storey gabled scullery block occupies the outer left with a bipartite window, immediately followed by a broad door with a rusticated margin. Three bays at first floor are symmetrically disposed, with a tripartite window at the centre flanked by a pair of diminutive blind arches.

The northeast elevation contains a block with a blank ground floor to the outer left and three diminutive blind arches at first floor level. A gabled block advances slightly to the right with a window at ground level and two symmetrically disposed windows at first floor. A single-storey scullery block occupies the outer right with a quadripartite window positioned left of centre.

Windows throughout are four-pane over six-pane timber sash and case windows, with plate glass over two-lying-pane timber sash and case windows in the round-headed openings. The roof is finished in grey slate with lead flashings, a piended roof for the porch, and a low pyramidal roof for the tower. Rusticated wallhead stacks on ashlar bases are topped with a single narrow octagonal can, though others are missing.

The interior features a narrow hall opening off a vestibule with a narrow stair to the right fitted with decorative cast-iron balusters. Doors are deeply set in segmental-headed openings with roll-moulding and wreath and lyre moulding above. Decorative plasterwork includes egg and dart moulding and floral paterae in the main downstairs rooms, with a segmental-headed recess in the dining room at the rear. A small webbed leaded oculus lights the first-floor landing, surrounded by egg and dart plaster moulding and a carved wooden octagonal opening. The belvedere is reached by step ladder.

To the south of the house, a small semicircular balustrade runs along the avenue. It features ashlar terminals with squat urn finials, an ashlar base and die, slab coping, and stocky vase-like sandstone balusters.

A longer balustrade extends west of the house with a central patio area containing a table sundial. This balustrade is finished in ashlar with arcade balusters, square ashlar die, squat urn finials, and rusticated saddleback coping. A paved patio viewing area at the centre displays a sundial with an ashlar die; to the left stands a freestanding figurative carving of the four winds.

The boundary wall is constructed from whinstone with quartz coping, while the wall immediately bounding the gates uses sandstone with pierced oval panels on a whinstone base. The main gatepiers are blocky, square rusticated structures with recessed arched panels infilled with quartz pebbles at lower level and upper panels jettied on stylised machicolation, mirroring the upper stage of the belvedere tower. These upper panels contain square openings with quartz pebble infill beneath a low pyramidal cap topped with an ashlar domed finial on a deep dentilled cornice. A pedestrian gate to the left is a round gatepier of quartz pebbles with a sandstone fluted neck and domed cap. The cast-iron gates display swirling lines and floral paterae motifs.