Ice House, The Manor House, Gallanach Road, Oban

The Manor House, built around 1800, is a three-bay, two-storey house with a near-symmetrical design. It now operates as a hotel and is accompanied by single-storey wings with attics that break the eaves. The main house is constructed of coursed block and sneck whinstone, contrasted by ashlar sandstone dressings. Raised margins highlight the openings, and windows feature projecting cills.

The south (principal) elevation has a projecting ashlar entrance porch at its centre, featuring a basket-arched doorway, a three-pane fanlight, and windows on either side, all topped with a moulded parapet and a shield. The fenestration is regular across the main facade. An advanced two-bay wing extends to the west, featuring stone dormers that break the eaves. To the east, a single bay wing is rectangular, incorporating a blind window at the first floor with a truncated wallhead stack that also breaks the eaves.

The north (rear) elevation shows an infilled doorway at ground floor level, centrally placed, and a three-light canted window at ground floor, bay three. The flanking wings mirror the appearance of the south wing, except for a stone dormer breaking the eaves of the east wing and a later 19th-century single-bay, two-storey addition to the west wing with a stone dormer and a blank wall at ground floor.

The east elevation has a single bay of the main block, with a doorway at ground floor. A three-bay elevation belongs to the wing, punctuated by a stone dormer breaking the eaves at first floor, bay one, and a conservatory masking the ground floor. A later harled stair tower rises from the centre, with narrow windows at ground and first floors. A rectangular window sits below the eaves at first floor, bay three. The west elevation features a single bay with a ground floor doorway.

The windows are predominantly 12-pane timber sash and case, with the exception of six-pane windows on the rectangular first-floor openings, a nine-pane fixed light in the porch windows, and plate glass timber sash and case windows on the canted window. Modern glazed doors provide access to the entrances. The roof is covered in grey slate, with piended roofs to the wings and a piend-roofed dormerhead. The west wing has an M-shaped roof. Skew copes define the gables of the main block. The main block features large apex stacks with dressings to the corners and a string course at the base of the gable; these stacks have circular cans. The west wing has a low coped two-flue stack.

The interior includes a hall with a coloured-tile floor, a three-centred arch to the north, supported by fluted pilasters, and a timber stair with cast-iron balusters and a timber handrail. In the southeast room on the ground floor, a timber chimney-piece is present, along with flanking six-panel doors with fluted architraves. The west wing’s ground floor showcases a cast-iron range with a cast-iron bolection-moulded surround, plain early 20th century panelling, a six-panel door to the upper floor with fielded panels. The ground floor of the east wing features a plain black marble chimney-piece including fossils, a dado rail, a six-panel door, panelled shutters to the windows, and dado panelling. A plain cornice and ceiling rose adorn the ceiling. A timber service stair has cast-iron balusters and a timber handrail.

Further features include a low rubble boundary wall to the road, flanked by copper lamps on fluted cast-iron standards. A subterranean ice house, built into the slope of the garden to the north, is accessible by stone steps leading to a rubble entrance wall and a barrel vault within.