Old Duloch

Old Duloch is a Grade A listed mansion house built around 1729, probably by John Cant who acquired the estate that year. It is a two-storey building with a raised basement and attic, arranged on a rectangular plan across five bays. The house is harled with dressed margins, quoin strips, and a moulded eaves course. It features a platform piended roof and small piended dormers to the south.

The principal south elevation is symmetrical. A splayed stair with modern cast-iron railings leads to the main entrance, a central two-leaf timber panelled door with a roll-moulded architrave and rectangular fanlight with webbed glazing. Small circular basement windows flank the stairs, with further basement windows featuring cast-iron bars in the outer bays. Two ground floor windows flank the door, with five first floor windows centred above the ground floor openings. Small piended dormer windows sit at the outer edge of the roofline. A single storey outbuilding, converted to a garage, abuts the right side of the house with its plain gable end facing south.

The east elevation has a garage abutting the house to the left, with a partially obscured basement window to the right.

The north rear elevation is near-symmetrical, with a central piended single storey porch and a central square window with cast-iron bars. A small square window appears to the left return, a sunk basement door to the left, and an arrow slit window in the left outer bay. Two further arrow slit windows appear to the right of the porch. A central stair window is set between the ground and first floors above the porch, with four first floor windows to the outer bays (the inner windows are narrower). A central cast-iron roof light crowns the elevation.

The west elevation contains a ground floor window to the left and a blind window to the right.

Windows are predominantly 12-pane timber sash and case windows, with four-pane timber windows in the dormers. The piended platform roof is covered in grey slates, with rendered, corniced wallhead stacks to the east and west. Stone quoin strips are present, along with an ashlar coped gablehead chimneystack serving the garage to the south.

The interior retains original mid-18th century fireplaces in the library and drawing room. The dining room is panelled in painted lime with gilt highlights to the panels and includes a look-alike fireplace. Some original white marble tiles laid in the basement near the kitchen survive.

The former stables, dating from the 18th century, comprise a single storey, five-bay rectangular-plan structure, partly converted to a garage. The west principal elevation is rendered, whilst the north and south elevations are random rubble. Three stable doors occupy the right side, with a modern window and garage door to the left. A bas-relief of a horse head is carved between the central stable doors. The pitched roof is covered in grey slates with ashlar coped skews and scrolled skewputts. The plain gable to the north has a two-leaf timber boarded door to the right of the south gable. The east elevation contains two later window openings.

The perimeter boundary walls are of random rubble. Mid-19th century square plan and chamfered ashlar gatepiers with pyramidal caps and later carved birds of prey finials stand at the west main entrance gates. A single plain square plan and pyramidal capped gatepier marks the terminus of an inner rubble wall to the west of the house, with another similar gatepier to the east of the house in a wooded glade.

A square-plan walled garden lies to the north of the house, divided into quarters by a central avenue running north-south. The south side features a low random rubble wall with central low square-plan gatepiers topped with pointed pyramid caps. The north, east, and west sides have high coped random rubble walls, with a low arched alcove in the northwest wall.

By the mid-19th century, the house was no longer the landowner's residence. In 1844, John Cunningham, Lord of Session, built another mansion house called Duloch House at the south end of the estate (now demolished). In the second half of the 19th century, Old Duloch accommodated estate employees. The estate later passed to Bailie William Gibson, who left it in trust administered by the Gibson Trustees. The houses and grounds were let on lease for many years. Old Duloch became derelict by the 1960s and was acquired and restored by Alastair Harper in 1969–70. According to the Dunfermline Press, the restoration included the renewal of floors and rebuilding of chimneystacks, whilst retaining the original stone quoins.