Walled Garden, Rosehall House

Rosehall House is a large, symmetrical classical mansion built between 1818 and 1825, with a datestone indicating 1822. It likely incorporates earlier fabric and was improved in 1873 by Alexander Ross. The house is arranged over two storeys with seven bays, and includes projecting two-storey and single-storey wings at the rear, forming a shallow U-plan. Later additions create a servant’s passage filling in some of the space between the wings. The house is notable for its unique interior scheme, designed in the late 1920s by Coco Chanel.

The exterior is constructed of coursed grey and pink freestone with dressings of honey-coloured Moray sandstone. The south (principal) elevation features a slightly projecting central five-bay block. The central entrance has a wide, corniced doorpiece with a four-panel timber door, rectangular fanlight, and narrow sidelights, all flanked by Roman Doric pilasters. Above the doorway is a blind window with a datestone, topped by a wide open pediment with deep bracketed soffits that spans the central three bays. The windows are predominantly timber sash and case, with 16 and 24 panes. The building has corniced end, lateral, and ridge stacks, and a slate roof. The building was in poor repair in 2006.

The interior is generally simple and classical, but with a distinctive scheme introduced by Coco Chanel. The entrance hall is flanked by a pair of large, well-proportioned reception rooms, accessed via six-panel timber doors. These rooms feature timber dado panelling and simple cornices. The room on the right has an Ionic columned recess, while the room on the left has a simpler Doric pilastered recess. Some smaller rooms have been stripped back to the stone walls due to dry rot. A barrel-vaulted gun room with a metal door and barred window, and a former kitchen containing a cast-iron range, are located in the west wing.

The Chanel scheme throughout the principal rooms is characterised by Hessian-textured wallpaper painted in shades of beige, with matt buff/beige coloured paintwork. Stage-set style, simple (buff/beige) painted timber fireplaces are present, along with some original cast-iron grates and brick/tile replacements. One first-floor room is decorated with hand-blocked French floral wallpaper. Some bathrooms are painted green. A rare early Shanks bidet is located in the first-floor bathroom to the west.

To the east of the house lies a walled garden bounded by rubble walls with flat coping. Within the garden are a pair of mirrored L-plan, single-storey and loft ancillary buildings with steeply pitched roofs and pointed arch windows facing into the garden.