Marchmont, 24 Bennochy Road, Kirkcaldy

Marchmont is a large, asymmetrical villa probably designed by John Milne around 1880. It was extended to the north and south in the late 19th century, with minor alterations made in 1920. The building exhibits a quirky French chateau style with Baronial and Tudor detailing, and is constructed of stugged, squared, and snecked rubble with dressed ashlar margins. A base course and part eaves course are also present. Features include crowstepped gables, crowstepped and moulded curvilinear dormerheads, ropework mouldings, square, segmental, and round-headed openings, hoodmoulds, corbels, stop-chamfered arrises, and stone mullions.

The west (principal) elevation has three bays. A bipartite window is centrally located at each floor, topped by a finialled curvilinear dormerhead featuring a 'Star of David' in a circular panel. To the left at ground level is a canted tripartite window; to the right a full-height canted tripartite window rises with a stepped corbel to the first floor and a corniced eaves section with corbelled, moulded segmental pediments over the outer lights. The roof is tall and octagonal, with diminutive, louvered dormer gablets on alternate faces and decorative wrought-iron brattishing culminating in a weathervane finial.

The south elevation features a tall, projecting centre bay with a window at first floor, below a stepped hoodmould with a blind panel, and a small round-headed window in the gablehead. A ropework-moulded round-headed doorway leads to a panelled timber door with a semicircular plate glass fanlight; stepped hoodmoulding incorporates a moulded panel below a corbel. To the left is a blinded door and first floor window, while the right bay is blank. A single-story extension projects at ground centre.

The east elevation displays asymmetrical fenestration, including a gabled bay to the left with a canted tripartite window at ground level and pedimented dormerheads over the first-floor windows. A modern extension is located to the left.

On the north elevation, blank crowstepped gables with gablehead stacks flank a bipartite stair window at centre, positioned above a single-story extension.

Four-pane and plate glass glazing is found in timber sash and case windows, with pictorial leaded and coloured glass in the stair window and attic window to the south. Grey slates form the roof, with a fishscale pattern on the polygonal section. Coped and shouldered stacks have cans and ashlar-coped skewbacks with moulded skewputts; cast-iron downpipes have decorative rainwater hoppers and fixings.

The interior includes extensive decorative plasterwork cornices and friezes, timber shutters, and a six-light screen door with coloured leaded glass. A room on the southwest side has fine classical ceiling detail and a carved fireplace with a grey marble slip. A dog-leg staircase features decorative cast-iron balusters and a timber handrail.

Boundary walls, constructed of semicircular-coped squared rubble to the west and rubble to elsewhere, enclose the property. These incorporate a segmental-headed arch with decorative wrought-iron gates to the garden.