Creagdhu Mansions, New Quay Street, Campbeltown

Creagdhu Mansions, New Quay Street, Campbeltown

A tenement building designed by John James Burnet and completed in 1896, this is an austere Scots Baronial composition arranged in a U-plan. The building comprises a four-storey and attic L-plan block to the north-east, adjoined by a two-storey and attic L-plan block to the south-west. The street elevations are faced in bull-faced sandstone with stugged and droved red sandstone ashlar dressings and details, while rear elevations are of random rubble. All elevations feature projecting window cills, raised margins to openings, and band courses at the eaves of the street frontages.

The Kirk Street elevation to the south-west presents a nine-bay frontage, grouped as five and four bays. The five-bay section to the left is a two-storey symmetrical composition with bipartite windows in the outer bays and doors at the ground floor of the 2nd and 4th bays. A band course at the ground floor lintels incorporates a corbel table above. The four-bay section to the right comprises the double end gable of the south-east range, with bipartite windows at ground floor in the first bay and a door in the second bay (marked by a band course lintel and corbel table). Two closely spaced windows light the gablehead. A two-bay gable at the outer right end features two closely spaced windows at ground floor, with a large two-storey, three-light bartizan breaking the eaves at the corner, corbelled out at first-floor level.

The New Quay Street elevation to the south-east is six bays, grouped as three and three. The left-hand three-bay section is two storeys and attic; the right-hand three-bay section rises to four storeys and attic with a gabled first bay. The corner bartizan (as described above) dominates the first bay, with a ground-floor window positioned to its right. The second and third bays contain a door to the left and bipartite windows to the right at ground floor, with curvilinear stone dormerheads breaking the eaves at second-floor level. The fourth bay has a round-arched door to the left and window to the right, with a corbel table at first-floor level and bipartite windows at the second and third floors; an attic window sits in the gablehead. The fifth bay contains a door at ground floor and a corbel table at third-floor level.

The Shore Street elevation to the north-east is three storeys and attic, with a three-bay frontage where the gable end of the south-east front rises over the third-floor corbel table at the first and second bays.

The north-west elevation presents a four-bay gable end to Shore Street, with the first and second bays largely blank except for a single window at third-floor level in the first bay.

The rear elevation displays a variety of regularly disposed windows and doors with stone dormerheads breaking the eaves; one timber dormerhead matches those in stone.

Windows throughout are timber sash and case with varied glazing patterns. On the south-west front, bipartite windows feature plate glass lower sashes with four-pane uppers, with twelve-pane glass at the dormers except for plate glass in bays one to three. The south-east front's windows at the fourth bay, second and third floors have plate glass lower sashes with four-pane uppers. Plate glass with four-pane uppers appears to the rear elevation. Entrance doors to the street are typically six-panel, two-leaf doors with eight-pane fanlights above, except for one four-panel glazed door to Kirk Street. Rear elevation doors are vertically-boarded with six-pane fanlights.

The roof is finished in grey slate with overhanging timber eaves displaying exposed rafter ends. The bartizan is topped with a bell-cast conical roof, bracketed timber eaves and a finial. Pitched roofs and slate-hung sides cover the stone dormers, while the south-west front (bays one to five) and south-east front (bays five and six) feature timber slate-hung gabled dormers with bracketed barge boards; a matching timber slate-hung gabled dormer appears on the north-east front (third bay). Skylights to common stairs sit at the ridge of the west range. A wash-house to the rear has a piended roof with a ventilator at the apex. Cast-iron gutters and downpipes are present, with a hopper at the left gable of the south-west elevation dated 1896.

Chimney stacks vary: those to the south-east range are bull-faced squared and snecked multi-flue stacks with rendered brick multi-flue stacks to the south-west range. All are coped with dressed ashlar ends and topped with red or mixed circular cans.

The single-storey wash-house has a steep piended roof and a single-bay elevation to Shore Street with a bipartite window.

A random rubble boundary wall to Shore Street features a semicircular cope, with two-leaf vertically-boarded gates adjacent to the wash-house.