Treetops Cottage, Mains Of Aiket

Treetops Cottage, Mains Of Aiket

This is a substantial farmhouse complex dating from the early 19th century, with an earlier eastern wing from around 1760 and later additions and alterations throughout the 19th and 20th centuries.

The main house is a two-storey, three-bay, gabled structure built around 1827, constructed in painted random whinstone rubble with sandstone ashlar dressings. A base course, eaves course, raised window margins, and quoin strips articulate the façade, while long and short droved sandstone quoins detail the wings and ancillary buildings. The building is approached from the north across a courtyard formed by single-storey, L-plan wings adjoining the east and west gables.

The principal elevation faces north towards the courtyard and features a central timber-panelled door set within a Doric-pilastered architrave with a shaped blocking course, topped by a seven-pane rectangular fanlight. The fenestration is regular across the main elevation. The eastern wing adjoining the house retains regular fenestration to its courtyard-facing elevation and shows raised window margins to some openings. A decorative 18th-century former doorway on the north gable has been converted to a window; it retains a moulded lintel, prominent fan-shaped keystone, and rusticated jambs, with two small windows positioned above. The south-facing rear elevation of the main house shows irregular fenestration centred by a border-glazed staircase window, with late 20th-century French doors at ground level to the left. The eastern wing's south elevation has irregular fenestration and a timber-boarded back door, a piended roof, and 20th-century glazed doors.

Windows are predominantly 12-pane glazing in timber sash and case windows to the main house, with predominantly double-glazed timber sash and case windows to the eastern wing. The roof is covered in graded grey slate with corniced, gablehead chimney stacks to the house and a small ridge stack to the wing, finished with yellow clay cans. Ashlar-coped skews crown the gable ends of the house. Cast-iron rainwater goods complete the exterior details.

The interior of the main house contains a curved stone staircase with decorative cast-iron balusters and a mahogany handrail. Both ground-floor rooms have plain, traditional chimneypieces. The drawing room features a decorative plaster cornice, whilst cornicing elsewhere is plain. Timber-panelled interior doors occur throughout.

The western range, dated 1827, formerly served as a stable and barn. It has timber-boarded doors opening to the courtyard, with a section of raised wallhead and catslide roof to the barn portion. A blocked vehicle entrance to the right bears a lintel dated 1827. Fenestration is irregular to the north and west elevations, with some blocked openings to the west. The roof is piended to the southwest corner, with ashlar-coped skews to the north and graded grey slate covering. The interior stable section adjoining the house retains a cobbled floor, three timber stalls with later doors, a loose box, and timber saddle trees mounted on the wall.

To the east stand ancillary buildings comprising a ruinous pair of gabled outbuildings. The older, roofless building to the east has a window and gablehead stack facing south. Adjacent to the west is a cow byre with timber stalls.

Treetops Cottage itself is a later 19th-century structure with 20th-century alterations. It is a two-storey, three-bay, gabled house—originally a cartshed or barn with a farm manager's residence above—to which a 20th-century single-storey wing with attic has been added to the rear, forming an L-plan. Constructed in painted whinstone rubble with droved sandstone ashlar dressings, it has a narrow eaves course, projecting cills, and long and short quoins. The north-facing front elevation features an off-centre timber-panelled door within a gabled porch, a later bipartite window at ground level to the left, and three later windows to the right, with regular fenestration in three bays at first-floor level. The gables and south elevation show irregular, predominantly later fenestration. A gabled wing projects from the right of the south elevation, with a conservatory at its centre. Windows are predominantly plate glass set in timber sash and case frames. The roof is crowned by coped gablehead stacks with yellow clay cans and ashlar-coped skews, covered in graded grey slate, with cast-iron rainwater goods.

The complex is enclosed by coped random rubble boundary walls with sandstone gatepiers and wrought-iron gates serving the main entrance and field entrances from the garden. A high flat-coped random rubble garden wall with a gateway adjoins the western wing.