Hotel, Dalriach Road, Oban

Hotel on Dalriach Road, Oban

A late 19th-century, two-storey building with attic storey, now used as a hospital. The structure is an asymmetrical Baronial-style former villa with a square plan comprising a south range with entrance, a circular tower at the south-west corner, paired wings set back from the principal elevation with a valley gutter between them, and an additional service wing at the north-east corner. This arrangement creates a U-shaped ridge pattern.

The walls are constructed of stugged ashlar on the principal south and west elevations, with roughly squared grey rubble elsewhere and polished ashlar dressings. A base course runs around the building, with a string course at first-floor level that loops around the downpipes, and another string course at eaves level. The windows feature roll-moulded arrises with chamfered sills. Crowstepped gables punctuate the roofline.

The south elevation presents four bays. To the left stands a crowstepped gable with a two-storey, five-light circular tower engaged at the corner; windows appear on each floor of the gable, including a narrow window in the gablehead itself. Between the second and third bays, a projecting porch with crenellated parapet is approached by a flight of twelve stone steps with nosings. The porch features round-arched, roll-moulded openings on three sides, supported by square columns with capitals and bases at the west corners and corresponding pilasters to the rear; the soffit is stone. The fourth bay contains a two-storey canted window with a crowstepped gable above corbelled out from the sidelights, with a slit window to the centre.

The west elevation has four bays. A circular corner tower stands at the outer right, while a gable with a slit window in its head spans bays one to three. Bay one features a two-storey canted window with a piended stone roof. Bay two has a tripartite window at ground-floor level and a bipartite window at first-floor level, with a corbel table supporting the gable above. Bay three similarly has a bipartite window at ground floor and a corbel table beneath the first-floor gable.

The east elevation, facing Dalriach Road, is gabled to the left with windows in the gablehead and at ground and first-floor levels to the right. A four-bay wing extends to the right; in bay two, a small bipartite window at ground level is surmounted by a large round-arched stair window above with a mullion at its centre and a transom at the springing of the arch.

The north elevation is M-gabled with windows set in the gableheads and an irregular window pattern elsewhere. The north wing comprises two bays, with a tripartite window at ground-floor level in bay one.

Windows throughout consist of plate glass timber sash-and-case on the principal elevations, with four-pane timber sash-and-case windows elsewhere. The roofs are finished in graded grey slate. The circular tower is topped by a conical spire with scalloped lead flashing and a simple weathervane finial. A box dormer on the west elevation contains a four-pane timber sash-and-case window. The east pitch features bipartite flat-roofed and piend-roofed dormers with four-pane timber sash-and-case windows, whilst the north wing has gabled dormers at first-floor level.

The main entrance is a two-leaf fielded-panelled door with a leaded round-arched fanlight above. The building is furnished with profiled gutters to the main block and tower, and cast-iron downpipes with decorative brackets and hoppers. Chimney stacks rise at the apex of each gable and along the west ridge, all featuring a string course, cope, and tall octagonal cans; the stacks at the north-east have smaller cans.

Internally, a glazed door in the vestibule screen is topped by a fanlight above a geometric tiled floor. A marble chimneypiece, panelled dado, and modillioned cornice feature in the vestibule. A two-arch screen with slender colonnettes serves the stair. The stair window is decorated with armorial and saltire motifs in mottled coloured glass. In the south-west room, a white and grey marble chimneypiece with fluted pilasters is complemented by a fine plaster cornice. Throughout the ground floor, doors are panelled and architraved with original brass door furniture; one door retains lead-pane glazed panels.