Buchanan Retreat, 100 Milngavie Road, Bearsden

Buchanan Retreat, built in stages between 1861 and 1899, is a predominantly late 19th-century, two-storey Tudor Gothic former residential home, now serving as municipal offices. The building is rectangular in plan and constructed of bull-faced red sandstone with ashlar dressings, which was stonecleaned with acid in the late 1980s. A base course and chamfered arrises are present, along with a corbelled parapet to the outer pavilion bays.

The west (principal) elevation is nine bays wide. An advanced two-storey entrance bay sits at the centre, featuring a round-arched porch with a hoodmould, flanked by colonnettes, and a short flight of steps leading up to it. Above the porch is a carved armorial, and a string course continues as a cill course for the first-floor windows. The gablehead is stepped with angle and apex shafts and a blank tablet. A pointed-arch arcade flanks the entrance, consisting of three bays to the left and four to the right, with sturdy sandstone shafts and composite capitals. Cross-mullioned windows are located behind the arcade, which is open to the right return but closed to the left by an advanced pavilion bay featuring a large, rectangular hoodmoulded window at ground level and a first-floor window with a piend-roofed dormerhead.

The north (side) elevation, altered after 1918, has five bays with a large, five-part window spanning the pavilion elevation under a hoodmould. Above this is a smaller, five-light timber mullioned window, flanked by windows breaking the eaves in mansarded dormerheads.

A tower, which breaks the eaves, is located to the rear, set in the re-entrant angle formed with the end of the pavilion block and the recessed rear elevation. The tower has a door at ground level with a fanlight and cornice; blinded panels at the third stage; a machicolated corbel course at the wallhead, arching over narrow lights; and a crenellated parapet with water spouts.

The east (rear) elevation has the tower positioned off-centre to the right, alongside a variety of irregular openings including a tripartite window, a canted window (installed after 1918), and a large window, as well as a modern metal fire escape.

The south (side) elevation features the end of the arcade with a pointed arch opening and closing pier to the outer left, and stone mullioned, three- and two-part windows to the pavilion elevation. Modern glazing is present. The roof is covered with green slates, featuring decorative clay finials and ridge tiles.

The interior was refurbished in the 1960s, apparently in a Scandinavian style, with good timber detailing. A staircase with a metal balustrade leads to a landing with an oval well, similarly balustraded, which provides light to the upper floor. Piers feature filleted angles formed by timber strips. Some timber wainscot cladding remains, along with a polished timber floor with a decorative border. Glazed doors have stylised brass handles. Some original light fittings from the 1960s refurbishment are still in place.