Cumloden

Cumloden

A circa 1820 single-storey and attic cottage house of extensive Gothick character. The building is painted render with painted margins and rusticated quoins, a base course, pointed-arched windows with diamond-pane glazing throughout, deep overhanging eaves, and scrolled bargeboarding. Slate-hung gabled dormer windows feature moulded pointed arches. Extensive outbuildings stand to the rear.

The principal south elevation is symmetrical across five bays to the left, with a timber verandah. A gabled entrance porch in a re-entrant angle adjoins a recessed transverse wing to the right. The centre and outer bays are gabled and slightly advanced. The deep eaves of the outer bays are carried on narrow arched side screens, whilst the eaves of the finialled centre bay project further on braces. The roof sweeps down to a three-bay verandah in the penultimate bays, linking the outer bays to the centre. A braced balcony with open arcaded timber balustrade continues the verandah line at the centre bay. The ground floor has regular fenestration. Windows appear in the gablehead of the outer bays. A tripartite rectangular-light window with a longer light at the centre occupies the gablehead of the centre bay, above which sits a carved stone panel comprising an inscribed stone with an ogee arch and a stone bearing a heraldic shield. Dormer windows occupy the penultimate bays, with rooflights below on the swept roofs.

The east elevation presents a long M-gabled wing adjoined with a porch in the re-entrant angle. A large open timber porch, gabled to the east with eaves projected on braces, contains a window to the right return. An advanced bay to the left of the south elevation contains a studded door with pointed-arched panels glazed at the apex, above which is a polished pink granite panel bearing white marble sculptured armorial bearings of the Earls of Galloway. Two windows to the right serve the south elevation, and two more serve the M-gabled east return.

The west elevation comprises a four-bay wing to the right and a three-bay wing recessed to the left. The right wing includes a modern gabled conservatory projecting in a bay to the right, which masks an original window, and a gabled porch in a bay to the right of centre with a door to the south return now leading into the conservatory, alongside windows to the west and north return. Windows occupy the bays to the left of centre, with three asymmetrically-placed dormer windows above. A ground-floor window and a blind window in the gablehead appear on the north return, whilst a window sits in the recessed single-storey linking block to the left. The left wing displays chamfered margins to rectangular-light windows, hoodmoulded at basement level. The outer bays are gabled and slightly advanced, featuring half-piended timber two-light oriel windows with horizontal windows at basement. A dormerheaded window occupies the centre bay with a small square window at basement. A slightly advanced gabled bay at the centre to the north return contains a pointed-arch window and a horizontal window at basement.

The north elevation is formed of two L-plans. The east return of the northwest wing presents a gable to the right at ground floor with two windows at first floor, blind to the right, and four bays to the left with doors to the outer bays and rectangular-light windows at ground and first floors, with a piended roof to the left. The northwest wing is linked by verandah to a square piended block to the northeast. This piended block, raised from single storey, has two windows at first floor to the west, a doorway to the left and window to the right at ground floor to the north, and a carriage opening to the right and pointed tripartite window to the left at ground floor on the east, with a tripartite window to the left and bipartite window to the right at first floor. Two bays recessed to the left on the east side contain a pointed-arched door to the right, window to the left, and two dormer windows. The rear of the transverse range to the left has a blocked door to the right and a piend-roofed canted bay to the left with a wallhead stack.

Throughout the building, diamond-pane glazing appears in sash and case windows. Granite ridge stacks feature triple diagonally-placed shafts to the south roof and one with double diagonally-placed shafts to the west roof, with originally more stacks now absent. The roof is covered with graded grey slates.

Two early 20th-century timber garden houses stand to the east. The larger garden house features oculi in pedimented gables and formerly had a completely encircling canopy. The smaller garden house has a canopy to its gable.