Cottage, Auchness

Cottage, Auchness

A substantial farmstead comprising a 16th century tower house with adjoined early 19th century wing and later additions, together with an 18th century cottage and associated steading range.

The tower house is a three-storey square-plan structure, harled throughout, with harled crowstepped gables. Crenellated pepperpot bartizans are positioned at the SE, NE and NW angles, each fitted with cosmetic blind arrow slits. The east elevation shows a canted window in a crenellated bay at ground floor (a later 19th century addition), with a painted double string course below the crenellated parapet. Windows are positioned at off-centre locations on the first and second floors, with a blind square panel at the centre of the gablehead.

A two-storey crenellated porch projects forward at the centre of the east elevation, featuring a boarded door with decorative iron hinges and flanking narrow lights with decorative coloured glass in the upper sashes. The porch includes a first-floor window to the north return and ground-floor window to the south return, with a painted string course between floors and below the crenellated parapet.

The early 19th century wing adjoins to the south as a two-storey structure with a gabled profile and harled crowstepped gables with painted margins. The north elevation of the tower shows windows at ground and first-floor level, with a small window to the left at second floor and a blind square panel to the right at eaves level.

The west elevation reveals the tower blank above an adjoining steading range, with a short crenellated wall at second-floor level. A broad rubble lean-to adjoins the west return of the wing, featuring a door and window.

Windows throughout the tower and wing are sash and case with predominantly 12-pane glazing, though some 2- and 4-pane variants exist. Harled gablehead stacks serve the tower to east and west, and the wing to south. The tower's north pitch and wing are covered in purple slates, while the south pitch of the tower has modern tiles. Several octagonal cans are present.

The adjoining 18th century cottage is constructed of painted rubble with a piended roof of purple slates. The principal east elevation features a gabled bay at centre with a slightly raised gable above eaves, containing a ground-floor window and a glazed oculus in the gablehead. A ledge at eaves level and bricked infill in gabled shape below the oculus suggests a former doocot. Canted projections flank the central bay, each with an east-facing window and flanking blind side lights with catslide roofs. The base of a former finial remains at the gable. Two rubble ridge stacks, raised in brick and flanking the centre, support the piended roof. The west elevation contains a central door with letter-box fanlight and a window to the left of centre, plus a machinery opening to the right. The south elevation is blank. Sash and case windows feature 2-pane upper sashes and 4-pane lower sashes to the east elevation.

A painted brick crenellated garden wall adjoins to the east of the cottage. An L-plan rubble steading adjoins to the west, integrated with the tower's west elevation. At the road end stands a pair of square rubble piers, each surmounted by four red sandstone square blocks, with curved rubble walls adjoined and linked to an inner pair of squat circular conical-capped rubble piers.

Historical records indicate that the porch and canted window bay are not shown on the 1847–48 Ordnance Survey map. Writing in 1896, Harper noted that "in recent times, additions have been made so as to make it suitable as a dwelling for the tenant of the farm of Auchness". The tower house at Auchness is very similar in character to that at Killumpha.