Mount House, Dundonald Road, Kilmarnock

Mount House is a classical villa of 1793 with later alterations and additions, located on Dundonald Road in Kilmarnock. The original building was a 2-storey house with attic and basement, comprising three bays. It was transformed into an Italianate composition around 1900 by the addition of a 3-stage tower as a fourth bay, with further extensions including a single-storey bay pavilion to the left and a 1930s six-bay addition to the right. The house is finished in pebble-dash with ashlar dressings, featuring a cill course at ground floor level, dividing band course and cornice with blocking course to the main house, cornices above ground floor to the tower and pavilion, and a towerhead distinguished by overhanging eaves.

The principal south elevation features a tetrastyle porch addition with entablature to the slightly advanced centre of the original three-bay house, with a keystoned door surround and pediment above. The regular fenestration is complemented by a pair of attic dormers flanking the central bay. To the left stands a single-storey pavilion, slightly advanced and featuring a 4-light window with swag and tail detailing above, and grotesque face label-stops under the cornice, with a stone balustrade surmounting and corner dies. The tower adjoins to the right, slightly advanced, with a 4-light window to the front spanning the bay at ground level with swag and tail detailing above and grotesque face label-stops under the band course. The second stage has a single segmental pedimented window, whilst the third stage features a round-arched bipartite window with impost blocks and dentilling under a pyramidal roof. The first and second storeys match to the right return. A 2-storey, 2-bay flat-roofed link adjoins the right, leading to a 6-bay, piend-roofed block with regular fenestration and timber cornice.

The west elevation displays a single-storey wing adjoining the ground floor and basement to the right of the 3-storey, 3-bay main house. One first-floor left bay window is now blind. A pair of attic dormers flanks the centre. An attached 2-storey extension set back to the left features a pend to the basement right with a narrow bipartite window above to ground floor, a further bipartite window to the left with a large tripartite window adjacent, and a gable end to the extreme left with paired windows to ground floor and a bipartite window to the gablehead with half-timbering above.

The north rear elevation features a long 2-storey extension adjoining the centre of the main house, with paired slit windows to ground floor and a further slit window to the extreme right, and a central window to first floor with a projecting attic gable exhibiting decorative timber bargeboards. The main house displays a rear wing adjoining the ground floor and basement centre, with bays to the flanks at each floor, and an outsized projecting bay to first floor centre breaking into a triangular gable, with regular bays to the flanks.

The east elevation shows the gable end of the 2-storey extension to the right, with a projecting single-storey square-plan extension featuring arched bay windows and a conical roof to the left, linking house and extension. A pair of arched windows appears on the projecting ground floor of the main house, with a single window and later fire escape to first floor and an attic dormer surmounting. An advanced 1930s 2-storey, 3-bay addition adjoins the main house by means of a lower 2-storey, 2-bay link to the rear.

The windows throughout are mostly 4 or 6-pane upper and plate glass lower timber sash and case windows to the main house, with 12-pane sash and case to the 1930s addition. The tower features arched windows, whilst the rear extension has 3-pane upper and plate glass lower timber sash and case windows. A 12-pane segmental arched light overlooks the staircase to the rear, with a pair of 16-pane segmental arched windows to the rear adjacent to a 4-light bay with lozenge panes. The roofs are piended and platformed in grey slate. Attic dormers on the south elevation feature broken-base segmental pediments with swag and tail detail, flat-roofed dormers with slated cheeks appear on the west, and a canted bay dormer with slated cheeks appears on the east. Painted stone stacks rise to cross walls and a sloped wallhead stack to the tower, with later harled narrow canned stacks to the rear elevations featuring projecting stone neck copes. Concealed gutters to the main elevation lead to painted cast-iron rainwater goods.

The interior contains fine early 19th-century decorative schemes with much of apparent late 19th to early 20th-century date. The hall features wainscot panelling with barley-sugar timber banisters to the stair, and a decoratively carved newel post head. Further wainscot panelling in neighbouring rooms is flanked by fluted pilasters around ornamental chimney pieces, with fine doors en suite. An arcade screen of timber Ionic columns divides a room and passage. Segmental arches appear throughout for recesses, overmantels and openings, often with decorative plasterwork friezes. The room at the towerhead features an open timber ceiling and an inscription tablet with heavily swagged surround containing a quotation from Robert Louis Stevenson, indicating its probable role as a nursery around 1900. A further room contains a canted window with leaded honeycomb glazing to the casements, a 4-centre-arched chimneypiece, dwarf column-flanked overmantel, wainscot panelling to bowed walls, and a decorative timber ceiling with billet ornament.

Fine wrought-iron railings define the entrance court, curved with an ashlar dwarf wall and dies. Inter-war wrought-iron lamp standards stand in front of the porch on stone pedestals, formerly supporting globe lamps.

Two pairs of gatepiers mark entrances to the grounds. To the west of the house, leading to the gardens, stands a pair of ashlar square panelled gatepiers on sloped bases with projecting neck copes, cushion caps supporting sloped stalks with ball finials surmounting. To the northwest of the house, leading to the informal drive, stands a pair of ashlar square panelled gatepiers on sloped bases with projecting neck copes and channelled caps, with random rubble walls and flat stone copes adjoining.