Balmoral Hotel, 94-96 George Street, Oban

Later 19th century. 3-storey Italianate hotel with tenement behind and shops at ground, U-plan on corner site. Polished ashlar to George and Craigard Streets, rear and E gable walls roughly squared rubble, stugged sandstone dressings. Shop-fronts with cornice above. Architraved upper floor windows to W elevation, roll-moulded to S elevation, round-arched at 2nd floor. Pendant- bracketted deep eaves cornice.

W (GEORGE STREET) ELEVATION: 6-bay, symmetrical, mirrored about centre above ground, original shop-front to left of centre with base course, roll-moulded door and window surrounds, 2-leaf panelled storm doors, modern shopfronts elsewhere. Bipartite windows in outer and centre bays to floors above. 2nd floor windows with scrolls at cills. 1st floor windows corniced.

S (CRAIGARD ROAD) ELEVATION: 7-bays (4-3) on rising ground. 4-bay gabled return of street frontage and 3 stepped bays. Bipartite windows in bays 5 and 7. Pilastered, round-arched entrance to hotel in centre bay, architraved with keystone and entablature. Matching doorway to tenement in penultimate bay to right. Original shopfront to left of doorway, matching shopfront at W elevation. Elevation curves back with streetline to outer right.

REAR ELEVATIONS: fenestration evenly spaced with stair windows to landings. Projecting stair tower at rear elevation of Craigard Road block.

N (JOHN STREET) ELEVATION: 2-bay gable end to narrow street elevation with small square window at gablehead, bay 1 an additional bay in wing projecting to left. Plate glass timber sash and case windows to upper floors. 4-pane sash and case windows to rear elevations, coloured glass to hotel stair windows. Gabled, slate-hung dormers to W pitch,

bipartite round-arched windows at bays 1-3, modern alterations to dormers at right. Piend-roofed slate-hung dormers to rear pitches with 4-pane sash and case windows. Grey slated roof divided by skew copes at chimney walls. Square cast-iron downpipes with decorative brackets. Corniced ashlar stacks with octagonal cans.

INTERIOR: stone stair, iron balustrade, timber handrail to rear of hotel.