Great Western Hotel, Corran Esplanade, Oban

The Great Western Hotel, located on Corran Esplanade in Oban, was built in 1862-3 by Charles Wilson of Glasgow. It is a four-story and attic building with a seven-bay central main block, symmetrically flanked to the north and south by two-story and attic wings set above a raised basement. The hotel is designed in a Classical style with Italianate detailing, although the wings are more restrained in their appearance. A dining room annex was added to the rear in 1880.

The front (west) elevation is symmetrical and dominated by the central block. A wide, straight forestair leads to the principal floor, with cast-iron handrails. Above the entrance is a four-story portico with round and square columns, framing the entrance door and flanking windows. An entablature above the portico features a dentilled cornice and blind balustrade. A canted window with a cornice and blocking course sits above it. Large, modern canted windows span three bays on either side of the portico, built on artificial stone basements. Regularly spaced windows are found on the first and second floors, with tripartite windows in the centre bay of the second floor. A large, pedimented dormer with a five-light, architraved, arcaded window tops the building. The first floor windows have architraves and consoled cornices, while the second floor windows are architraved with scroll details at the cills. The north and south wings feature a stugged, squared and snecked basement with a string course above, and principal floor windows that are architraved and corniced. A strip pilaster marks the northern end of the elevation, while the south wing has a two-story canted window at its centre.

The rear (east) elevation is five-story, with the central two bays raised one story to correspond with the dormer on the west elevation. A four-story, four-bay wing projects to the east, featuring stair windows at the south front. An adjoining two-story, five-bay annex extends to the south, with bipartite windows on the upper floor. The southern elevation of this annex is advanced in the third bay, with a gable above, and a bipartite window in the gablehead.

The majority of the windows are timber sash and case, with four panes on the first and second floors of the central block’s west elevation, and plate glass timber sash and case windows elsewhere. The east elevation of the central block features four-pane sash and case windows on the principal floor, and eight-pane windows on the second and third floors. South wing windows have eight and four panes. The roofs are covered in grey slate, with a mansard roof to the west front, a piended roof to the rear of the central block, and pitched roofs to the north, south, and east wings. Segmental arched dormers are present on the west front, some bipartite, while the east side features piend-roofed dormers with bipartite windows. Cast-iron downpipes are found on the north and south wings and the east elevation. Multi-flue stacks rise from the end gables of the main block, north, south, and east wings. Cast-iron railings enclose the entrance steps.