Kirkland, Dunlop

Kirkland, Dunlop

This is an early 16th-century former manse on a sloping site, possibly built on older foundations, with probable 18th-century alterations and a significant east wing added by James Chalmers in 1910. The building comprises a two-storey L-plan original structure with a circular stair tower set in the re-entrant angle, extended by a matching L-plan addition to the east (two-storey, with basement to the east section).

The main house displays the characteristic steep crowstepped gabled roofs, gabled dormers, and gablehead stacks typical of Scottish defensive domestic architecture. Construction is random sandstone with some whinstone rubble, dressed with sandstone ashlar. An eaves course, long and short quoins, and mixed window margins (some suggesting 16th-century date, others with sandstone ashlar dressings) are evident throughout. A pedimented porch marks the 1910 addition to the south, while a two-storey gabled rectangular bay window of 1910 projects from the north elevation of the original building.

The principal west elevation presents an L-plan composition with an advanced gable to the left and the round turret in the re-entrant angle topped with a wrought-iron weather cock. The entrance features a timber-panelled door with reeded edges, linen-fold lower panels, and Vitruvian-scroll decoration with a cast-iron handle. A 16th-century carved stone death mask sits at eaves level in the re-entrant angle, above a stone gutter outshot. The turret contains three staircase windows. A late 20th-century lean-to glass and timber conservatory adjoins the gable. The south elevation is arranged as a U-plan courtyard. The left gable (16th-century) shows a single first-floor window with a blocked earlier window below. The centre section comprises a three-bay arrangement with a round-arched fully glazed two-leaf door set within an advanced central pedimented porch with ball finials, flanked by windows, and a gabled dormer at first-floor level to the left. The right gable displays irregular fenestration and features another carved stone death mask beneath the eaves in its re-entrant angle.

The north (garden) elevation shows the original house to the right with an advanced two-storey three-light bay window (circa 1910) featuring a crowstepped gable and a half-glazed timber-panelled door to its right return. The 1910 extension rises irregularly on the sloping ground to the left, with a crowstepped gable to its outer left and an advanced circular turret with eight-sided pyramidal roof adjoining the original structure. The east (side) elevation, three storeys plus attic, shows a timber-boarded door at ground level to the centre, irregular fenestration, two gabled dormers breaking the eaves at second-floor level, and a central timber gabled dormer to the attic with plain bargeboarding.

Windows throughout are predominantly 12-pane glazing in horned timber sash and case frames. Coped stone stacks (some rendered) carry thackstanes and bulbous red clay cans. Roofing is graded grey slate with cast-iron rainwater goods.

The interior mostly dates from circa 1910. The front door retains 16th-century (possibly French) carved panels with male and female profiles in rondels surrounded by foliage. A half-glazed timber-panelled lobby door opens onto the turnpike stone staircase with brass rail. The Entrance Hall and Passage are panelled in dark wood with a bracketed plate-rack at picture-rail level and a small chimneypiece with green tiles. The dining room is timber-panelled with a plate rack and a decorative timber chimneypiece featuring a bracketed mantelshelf and an overmantel with pointed arched and quatrefoil panels. The sitting room is timber-panelled with a large stone chimney piece, a corbelled mantelshelf beneath a roll-moulded depressed arch recess, a cast-iron grate with studded bronze hood, red tile insets and hearth, and a semicircular bronze fender. Throughout the interior, timber-panelled doors and plaster cornicing are evident.

A former coach house and stable, circa 1920, forms a single-storey U-plan range of outbuildings with an enclosed courtyard abutting the boundary wall. Irregular fenestration to outer and courtyard elevations shows timber-boarded doors and predominantly 12-pane timber sash and case windows. Leaded skylights light the interior. Two dormered pigeon-loft entrances, each with three holes, pierce the east elevation. The bell-cast piended roof features deep bracketed eaves, metal flashings, and graded grey slate. Internal stalls survive.

Boundary and garden walls are constructed of coped random rubble. Stone steps approach the 1910 addition to the north and southeast. An arched gateway with long and short quoins pierces the wall east of the coach house.

The principal entrance is marked by two-leaf spear-headed cast-iron gates with curved tops, set between pyramidal-capped painted stone gatepiers with ball finials. A later wrought-iron footgate to the south has rectangular dressed rubble gatepiers. Similar two-leaf gates sit on the steps to the southeast corner of the house. Two-leaf wrought-iron gates also stand to the southeast side of the front garden.