Kilrie House

Kilrie House

Dated 1854, Kilrie House is a tall, two-storey villa with attic storey, comprising four bays and executed in the Tudor Jacobean style. The building is distinguished by curvilinear gables and steeply pedimented dormer windows with stone finials. The external walls are constructed of stugged ashlar bands with dressed quoins, combined with dressed squared and snecked rubble. A deep base course and eaves cornice run across the building, embellished with corbels, strapwork pediments, hoodmoulds, and stylised crenellated window heads. Stone mullions are employed throughout, and decorative features include a roll-moulded doorway with chamfered and concave-moulded arrises.

The principal south elevation features a curvilinear pediment with a family crest on the tympanum, above a deeply moulded shouldered doorcase containing a panelled timber door and deep plate glass fanlight. This doorcase sits in a bay to the left of centre at ground level. To the right are two bipartite windows beneath a continuous hoodmould, with three further hoodmoulded windows at first floor level. Steeply pedimented stone-finialled dormer windows break through the eaves. An advanced broad curvilinear gable to the outer left contains a crenellated window head to a projecting tripartite window at ground level, a hoodmoulded bipartite window above, and a strapwork-pedimented single window within the gable head.

The east terrace elevation is dominated by a broad projecting curvilinear gable to the outer left, featuring a four-light canted window at ground level. A raised centre hoodmould forms a corbel to a small four-light canted window at first floor, which gives way to a ball-finialled crenellated parapet and a strapwork-pedimented window in the gable head. Recessed centre bays contain a stone-balustraded terrace with a two-leaf glazed door of six-pane glazing pattern to the right and a window to the left, both hoodmoulded. Two first-floor windows break through the eaves into finialled, pedimented dormer heads, each containing an arrowslit to the tympanum. A narrower curvilinear bay to the outer right displays a hoodmoulded window at ground level and a further window in the gable head below a raised datestone.

The west elevation incorporates a broad bay to the right of centre with a canted three-light window comparable to that on the south elevation, two hoodmoulded windows at first floor, and two dormer windows. Two slightly lower bays to the left contain a bipartite window to the right and a single window to the left at ground level, with two dormerheaded windows above. A bay to the outer left holds a ground-level window giving way to an oriel window at first floor and a dormer window breaking the eaves above. Three small windows serve a single-storey office wing at the outer left.

The north elevation presents a variety of elements including slightly advanced outer gables, that to the left featuring a corbelled gable head stack. Projecting single-storey office wings form a small courtyard on this face.

Throughout, the windows employ four-, eight-, twelve- and plate glass glazing patterns in timber sash-and-case frames. The roof is covered in grey slates. Broad banded and coped ridge and gable head stacks with some cans are set above ashlar coped skews with moulded skewputts. Cast-iron downpipes with decorative rainwater hoppers complete the external detail.

The interior contains some decorative plasterwork cornicing. The hall is tiled with a screen door, while the dining room features a marble fireplace. A scale-and-platt staircase with cast-iron balusters and timber handrail serves the upper levels.

The gatepiers are constructed of polygonal ashlar with pointed-arch niche detail to the south face and conical coping.

Kilrie House was built for John Drysdale, a former Provost of Kirkcaldy, and remains in the Drysdale family. During the owner's absence, the foundations were erroneously laid, resulting in the terrace elevation facing east rather than south as originally intended. Kilrie Lodge, the Walled Garden, and the Dovecot are listed separately.