Blair Castle

Blair Castle is a substantial, three-storey country house or villa dating to circa 1800-1830. It was built in the late classical style associated with Robert Adam. The house was altered and had additions made around 1927, when it was established as a miners’ welfare home.

The main house block is square in plan and symmetrical, with three bays on each elevation. It is constructed of grey sandstone ashlar, with rustication on the ground floor, taller principal or first floor, and a shorter upper or second floor. Features include a base course, band courses dividing the floors, and an eaves band. Most windows are timber sash and case, but those on the ground and principal floors have been replaced with plate glass glazing, though subsidiary elevations retain a twelve-pane pattern. The upper floor windows are twelve-paned sash windows. A shallow slated piend roof is topped by ashlar chimney stacks.

Flanking the main block are single-storey, flat-roofed wings dating to circa 1927. These wings partially conceal earlier single-storey, piend-roofed wings; the wing on the right (east) is still visible, with an over-arched centre bay framing a central window on the south elevation, and a stepped blocking course at the eaves. A symmetrical wing to the left (west) is largely hidden behind the later circa 1927 additions, which extend further west and connect to a two-storey flat-roofed block.

The principal (south) elevation is tripartite, with a full-height, pedimented bay centrally located and slightly projecting from the single-window side bays. The central bay features a di-style Doric porch at ground level, and a tripartite window within a segmentally-arched opening on the principal floor. A further tripartite window is at the upper floor level. The first and second floors are clasped by a giant paired Ionic pilaster order which supports frieze blocks with simplified rosette detail below the eaves and wallhead pediment. A shallow rectangular recess is in the pediment. Paired stacks frame the pediment.

To the north are four piend-roofed blocks forming rear wings. A chimney addition dating to circa 1927 rises on the exterior of the west elevation, high above the wallhead.

The interior includes a Corinthian columned screen in the entrance vestibule, with columns featuring distinctive circular abaci. A top-lit half-turn staircase has decorative cast-iron balustrade. Principal rooms have decorative plasterwork ceilings and cornices, in addition to some contemporary chimney pieces and slips. There is a drawing room with fielded panelling above a dado rail, Corinthianesque pilasters framing a buffet recess with garland detailing, a simple cornice, a plain ceiling, and a polished black marble chimney piece.