Ferry Inn, Limekiln Point, Rosneath

The Ferry Inn is an Arts and Crafts villa designed by Edwin Lutyens and built between 1896 and 1897. It was originally intended as a wing to an earlier 19th-century hotel; the western block of that hotel now stands separately as Ferry Inn Cottage, listed separately. The building is situated on Limekiln Point, Rosneath.

The villa is two storeys high, raised over a basement to the east. It has a rectangular plan and is constructed from whinstone rubble with harl pointing, with white-painted harl at the principal floor level. Ashlar margins and dressings are used, alongside chamfered reveals. The basement features masonry mullions, while the ground floor has multi-paned, metal-framed windows and the upper floor has windows directly under the eaves. Some upper floors are slightly jettied, with deep-set segmental windows to the basement. The roof has projecting eaves.

The south elevation presents a broad, two-bay, gabled entrance porch with a bell-cast roof, advanced to the left. The porch has a round-arched entrance with emphasised voussoirs and a small bipartite window. A formerly blocked door has been replaced with a bipartite window to the outer left of the porch and another window is present at the first floor. To the right of the porch is a three-bay block above a deep, battered basement. A large chimney stack rises from the basement, breaking the eaves to form three very tall, sandstone coped, diamond-set stacks. Continuous ashlar windows run along the principal floor, with a six-light flush window strip to the left at the upper floor and an oriel and corner oriel to the right. Two basement windows complete the elevation.

The east elevation has five regular bays with oriels to the harled upper floor, over a two-storey whinstone basement. Two windows are centrally placed at the basement level. A battered out-shot on the extreme right, finished with ashlar saddleback coping, forms a balcony to a round-headed, wooden, hinged and studded door, accompanied by a five-light window. A five-light window is on the outer left, and a bipartite metal-framed window is to the left of the centre.

The north elevation features a two-storey, four-bay, harled block to the right, looking into a walled garden. A three-bay block is slightly recessed to the left, above a double basement. Four segmental-headed windows are grouped 1-3 on the ground floor, with sandstone and whinstone margins. A bipartite window is on the first floor to the outer right. A projecting, bell-cast roofed block, corbelled out at the cill, is visible at the first floor on the left. This block has closely-spaced bipartite windows. To the upper floor’s left are three regular bays, a corner oriel, and two closely-spaced oriels at the centre. A piend-roofed glazed conservatory is situated on a rubble battered outshot in the re-entrant angle, featuring a five-light window and a basement-level window.

The west elevation has three bays; flanking advanced, bell-cast roofed jambs contain a garage door on the left and a door flanked by bipartite windows. A recessed metal-framed five-light window sits at ground level (plate glass) and another at first floor level (multi-paned).

The building features plate glass and multi-paned windows, and a graded grey/green slate roof with lead flshings. A tripartite wallhead stack exists on the south elevation and a broad, corniced sandstone ridge stack on the north ridge.

The interior has largely been lost, but two back-to-back, deeply-set, round-headed fireplaces with chamfered mouldings remain. The interior also contains circa 1950s pine and beech panelling throughout, glass fire divisions along corridors, and pine doors.