Spott House

Spott House Chapel is a substantial Baronial mansion, largely dating from 1830, when William Burn extensively remodelled an earlier tower house. The building stands two and three stories high, with a basement and attic.

The burn that originally ran alongside the house was altered to create a pseudo-moat, with an arched culvert installed in 1830 on the west side. The exterior features a mixture of squared and snecked pink sandstone, accentuated by grey ashlar dressings, and crowstepped gables.

The west (entrance) elevation is divided into two blocks; the three-bay, three-story block to the right is built on the foundations of the earlier tower. A Jacobean style doorway is framed by strapworked pilasters and a pediment with obelisk finials, with regular window placement throughout. A turret corbels from the first floor, situated in the re-entrant angle with the left block, continuing above the wallhead and culminating in a candle snuffer roof. The left block consists of two bays, slightly advanced, with scrolled pedimented heads over the first-floor windows.

The east elevation is set at an obtuse angle around a central stair turret, exhibiting irregular openings. A three-story section to the left has pedimented dormerheads over the second-floor windows, while a two-story and basement section to the right features a variety of window openings.

The south elevation showcases two wide, three-story bays; on the left, a crowstepped gabled section includes an attic window, while on the right, inserted tripartite French windows are accompanied by a flight of semi-circular steps. A pedimented dormerhead tops the second-floor window.

The north elevation presents an irregular arrangement, with an advanced gabled bay to the outer left, a projecting stack, and a circular tower set deeply into the wall. A full-height canted bay with tripartite windows on each floor occupies the outer right.

The windows are primarily sash and case, with a 12-pane glazing pattern. Grey slates cover the gabled and candle snuffer tower roofs. Tall diamond-shaped chimney stacks, built on ashlar bases, are linked and clustered.

The interior includes a cellar beneath the basement which is awaiting excavation to reveal more about the original tower house. The basement features notably thick walls (12 inches), and includes a vaulted bake-house with segmentally arched ovens and a flagged floor. A former prison, linked to the house under the west drive, is adjacent to the boiler house. A 17th-century newel stair remains. Later interior work by Burn incorporates Jacobean panelling in the hall, a timber stair, decorative plasterwork, and plain fireplaces.

Rubble boundary walls with squat, pyramid-capped piers enclose the site.

A small, gabled building, possibly connected to the original tower house, stands on steeply sloping ground to the south of the mansion; the chapel is constructed of rubble sandstone with a slate roof and a doorway on the north side, featuring a window in the east gable. It now functions as an outbuilding, adjoined to the boundary walls by a walled area on the steep southern slope.

A game larder, dating to around 1830, is a two-stage, square building of red rubble with harled sneck, built into the hillside. It has a door to the upper floor on the east side, a louvred bipartite window on the north side, and timber brackets supporting overhanging eaves under a grey slated swept roof, with a louvred ventilator at the apex.