Beechwood, 26 Bennochy Road, Kirkcaldy

Beechwood is a large, two-story Scots Baronial villa dating to approximately 1880 and likely designed by John Milne. The house is located at 26 Bennochy Road, Kirkcaldy, and has undergone significant alterations, most notably unsympathetic 20th-century additions that have altered its appearance.

The villa is constructed of squared and snecked stugged rubble stone with ashlar dressings. It features a full-height polygonal corner bay with a distinctive ogee-roofed fishscale covering and iron weathervane. A canted, tripartite window is positioned in an advanced bay to the left, with a stone canopy sheltering the central window and a smaller window above breaking the eaves into a crowstepped gable. The central bay contains a bipartite window on the ground floor (one light currently blocked) and a further bipartite window on the first floor, with decorative panels in the gablehead. The west elevation, facing Bennochy Road, is the most prominent.

The south elevation, originally the main entrance front, is substantially obscured by 20th-century additions. However, remnants of the original entrance tower are visible, partially encased in a flat-roofed blockwork addition. The tower's upper stages features angled, finialled bartizans with hoodmoulded pointed arch windows and a tall pyramidal roof with decorative iron brattishing.

The north elevation shows broad, crowstepped gables with gablehead stacks and a flat-roofed link containing a stair window and a modern dormer. A single-story crowstepped wing extends from the centre and left. The rear (east) elevation is largely hidden by further additions.

Original windows are timber sash and case with plate glass glazing. The roof is covered with grey slates, and the house has shouldered and corniced gablehead stacks topped with cans, scrolled and beaked skewputts, and moulded eaves guttering.

The interior, last inspected in 1997, exhibits highly decorative plasterwork cornices and roses, and a cast-iron balustrade (now boxed-in) with a timber handrail. Panelled shutters are also present.

A rectangular-plan stable, linked to the main house by modern additions, features rounded angles, crowstepped gables, a pepperpot bartizan, a blocked oculus, and a ball finial. The stable's design shares features with other works attributed to John Milne, supporting the attribution.

Boundary walls are constructed of low saddleback-coped squared rubble, and a small, crowstepped, harled garage is also present.