Lodge, Cairndhu House, Rhu Road Lower, Helensburgh

The lodge at Cairndhu House, located on Rhu Road Lower in Helensburgh, was designed by William Leiper in 1871. This single-storey and attic building is constructed in the L-plan Scots Renaissance style, featuring cream squared and coursed sandstone with ashlar dressings. Notable architectural details include a roll-moulded cill course, chamfered reveals with roll-moulding, shaped and moulded gables topped with ball finials, and a corbel course.

On the west elevation, the entrance porch is positioned in the re-entrant angle and features a round-headed doorway set within a squared panel, leading to a boarded door. The porch is adorned with a corbelled and crenellated parapet, which is topped by a ball finial at the angle. To the right is a blank wall with a corbel course, while to the left is a gabled bay with kneelers and ball finials. There is a squat bow on the outer left, which has a raised blank ashlar panel at the center, flanked by windows, and features an eaves course with a finialled half-conical roof. A raised blank ashlar panel is also present to the right.

The small gablehead window on this elevation is topped with an open semi-circular headed pediment that cradles a finial with a cartouche in the tympanum.

On the southeast elevation, the angles are chamfered and corbelled to square below a corbel course. A corbelled gablehead is stepped over a bipartite window in the center, with a raised blank ashlar panel above. There is a single-storey flat-roofed modern addition that abuts the outer right side.

The east elevation features a shaped gable with a small gablehead window. The north elevation has a window at the center and an advanced full-height chimney wall to the right, which includes a gablet below a rendered wallhead stack.

The building has modern uPVC glazing and is roofed with grey/green slates. A polygonal sandstone corniced stack is located at the center, retaining its original cans.

The gatepiers and boundary walls consist of cream ashlar clustered columnar piers, which are quatrefoil in section and topped with banded pyramids raised on small ashlar balls. The boundary walls are made of snecked red sandstone with ashlar coping, flanked by stepped walls.