Gatepiers, Lochbank

Gatepiers, Lochbank

Built 1784-85, with 19th century additions and alterations, this Grade B listed building is a 2-storey house with attic and cellar, situated on the west banks of Carlingwark Loch. The original 3-bay structure was extended to the northeast with a lower 2-storey service wing and to the southwest with a 2-storey drawing room extension. A stair tower stands to the rear (northwest), later converted to a water tower, with various ancillary outbuildings also positioned to the rear.

The exterior is rendered in painted harl with painted ashlar dressings and quoin strips, featuring a base course and eaves course. The principal southeastern elevation displays a slightly advanced centre bay typical of 18th century design. An early 19th century segmental bowed porch, a notable Regency feature, dominates the centre, complete with a flagstoned segmental plinth, stone steps, plain iron railings, and latticed iron pilasters and pelmet beneath a swept lead roof. The porch contains a tripartite doorway with dividing colonettes, panelled aprons to the sidelights, a panelled door, and a sunburst fanlight with metope and triglyph surround. A single window sits above, flanked by later stone mullioned bipartite windows. The drawing room extension to the outer left projects slightly, with a striking 4-light corniced window and two single windows above. The service wing to the outer right features a 2-bay windowed gable that breaks the eaves.

The rear northwest elevation comprises a piend-roofed stair tower at the original centre with a lean-to addition in the re-entrant formed between it and a piend-roofed former water tower, a projecting service gable, and further ancillary range extending northward.

Timber sash and case windows predominate, mostly with 4-pane glazing patterns and horns, many of high quality replacement standard. A broad coped stone wallhead stack rises from the original southwest side elevation, while more slender stacks sit at the gableheads of the later additions. The roof is covered in graded grey slates with Lancashire slates to the rear. The original house has a piended roof; the 19th century additions are gabled. Cast-iron guttering with some funnel water hoppers complete the external detailing.

Interior

The interior displays excellent decorative detailing, much of which dates to the 19th century. The plan is single-pile with a rear corridor serving both floors. Evidence suggests the house's orientation was reoriented to face the loch, with the stair tower introduced and the plan form fundamentally altered, accounting for the substantial 19th century decorative work.

Notable features include fine plasterwork to cornicing with shouldered and decorative archways, and ornate ceiling roses. The chimneypieces are particularly distinguished, including one imported from the Lion's Club on Sauchiehall Street, Glasgow dating to the 1800s, alongside several 'Adam' style and classical timber and marble examples, one notably featuring a carved tablet depicting stone masons at work. A carved timber stair and round archways opening into the corridor from the first floor landing add further interest. A fine run of linen cupboards occupies the first floor, and the rooms retain panelled doors and panelled shutters. Cellarage extends beneath the house.

Boundary Walls and Gatepiers

A long run of curving harl-pointed rubble whinstone boundary walls, topped with sandstone coping, lines the roadside to the north. Dating to the late 18th or early 19th century with some later minor realignment, these walls extend from the northeast of the house to the southwest, continuing around the former lodge at Littlebank and along the road to Threave, bordering Gallows Slot, and reaching down to the shore of the loch to the north.

A fine pair of sandstone gatepiers with cornices and ball finials stands at the head of the drive, though these have been re-sited. Additional plain sandstone piers and both pedestrian and vehicular gateways complete the entrance arrangement.