Orrock

Orrock is an early 19th-century farmhouse, incorporating fabric from an earlier house dated 1678. It is a 2-storey, 3-bay rectangular building, with a smaller 2-storey, single-bay, piend-roofed extension to the west and a single-storey extension to the east. The farmhouse is harled with droved and painted margins and a base course.

The south elevation, which serves as the principal facade, features a central doorway topped with a 10-pane fanlight, and flanked by windows. A further window is set within a recessed extension to the left. The first floor has regularly placed windows.

The north elevation, the entrance face, displays a curvilinear pediment dated 1678 at its apex, positioned over a panel inscribed with the initials "AO EW" above a ribbon border enclosing the initials "AO SM." A narrow window is to the left, with a further window beyond. The first floor includes a large stair window to the left of centre, with windows in the flanking bays. A door is set into a recessed extension to the right, with a window above.

The east elevation features the small piend-roofed extension, with a timber door on its north return and a window on its south return. The west elevation has a glazed door to the right and two windows to the left at ground level, with further windows to the right and left at first floor.

The windows throughout are timber sash and case, with 4-, 12-, and 15-pane glazing. The roof is covered in grey slates, with coped ashlar skews, ashlar coped stacks, polygonal cans, and thackstanes.

The interior retains some original cornicing, a water-leaf ceiling rose, and a radial-astragalled fanlight. Original fireplaces have been removed and replaced with timber surrounds over brick inserts, in a style influenced by Lorimer. A first-floor room features a bolection-moulded chimneypiece inscribed with the entwined initials "AO SM."

An outbuilding, constructed of pantiled rubble with ashlar coped skews and stacks, has been converted into garages and storage space. Coped random rubble boundary walls define the site.

Historical records indicate the Orrock family resided at Orrock before 1233, with the family motto "Solus Christus mea Rupes" (Christ alone my rock) appearing on the original pediment. In 1458, the Abbot of Dunfermline granted a charter confirming family possession. Alexander Orrock served as mint master for Scotland in 1538, and the barony was sold in the 18th century when the family moved to Aberdeenshire. The initials on the early pediment are believed to belong to Alexander Orrock and his wives, Elizabeth Wemyss and Sophia Maria of Wemyss. Local accounts also describe the land as yielding naturally cut “British diamonds.”