Mumrills House, Mumrills Road, Laurieston

Mumrills House, Mumrills Road, Laurieston

Mumrills House is an early 19th-century classical villa, possibly designed by David Hamilton. Originally the farmhouse for the adjoining Mumrills Farm, it is a 2-storey, 3-bay rectangular-plan building with fine jointed, droved sandstone ashlar to the principal elevation. Sandstone ashlar dressings are used throughout, while the sides and rear are constructed of roughly coursed rubble. The building features a base course, raised window margins with banded outer frames, projecting ashlar lintels and cills, raised long and short quoins, and strip quoins to the sides and rear. A projecting eaves course with blocking course runs across the top.

The slightly advanced central bay is marked by raised quoins and a large corniced doorpiece with moulded architrave. The wallhead is finished with a stepped parapet and plain fielded panel to the centre.

The principal (north) elevation is symmetrical, with a central doorway featuring a multipane leaded glass fanlight and 4-panel timber door. A 1st floor window sits directly above the cornice of the doorpiece, with windows to the outer bays at both ground and 1st floor levels.

The east elevation is a gable end with a wide gablehead stack. Windows are positioned to the far right of both ground and 1st floors with plain margins. A 1½-storey coursed rubble wall adjoins to the left at ground floor level, forming a courtyard between the main house and an outbuilding to the far left.

The south (rear) elevation has a central rectangular stair window. A brick-built link corridor connects the house to an outbuilding at ground floor level. Windows flank the bays at both ground and 1st floors, with a later, smaller window at 1st floor level off-centre to the right.

The west elevation is a gable end with a wide gablehead stack and two ground floor windows positioned to the far left and off-centre right.

Windows throughout are predominantly 12-pane timber sash and case. The pitched roof is covered with grey slates, re-roofed in the late 20th century, and features projecting straight ashlar skews. The chimney stacks to the east and west have capped ashlar bases with thackstanes; the original octagonal stone capped chimney shafts (removed around 2000) are retained in the garden to the east and have been replaced by conical clay cans with vented caps, four to each stack.

The interior has been subdivided into four separate flatted dwellings. An original geometrical stone staircase rises through a U-shaped central stairwell with decorative cast iron balusters and a moulded mahogany balustrade. Some original decorative cornicing survives in the hallway.

Courtyards to the rear are enclosed on the east, west, and south sides by high rubble and brick walls. A long wall to the south edge extends westward, formerly enclosing a larger walled garden beyond the courtyards. A doorway at the far west of the south wall (beyond the west wall) leads to this former garden area. A brick outbuilding is built into the north (courtyards) side of the south wall. The public elevations are of random coursed ashlar rubble, while the private elevations are coursed red brick with plain ashlar caps. The east wall is broken by the east elevation of an outbuilding (possibly later) and has a doorway to the far right leading to the courtyard.

A large T-plan red brick outbuilding stands in the courtyard to the rear, possibly of later date, and is built into the south and east courtyard walls. It is linked to the main house by a flat-roofed link corridor to the north, with a piended roofed outshot to the east and a lean-to outshot to the west resting against the rear wall. This outbuilding was possibly a wash-house or workshop.