Flowerdale And Westerdale House

Flowerdale and Westerdale House is a substantial property dating to 1738, with major restorations and additions carried out by A Maitland and Sons in 1904. The building is listed as Category A.

The original house is a double-pile structure of two storeys with an attic, comprising six bays, with a similar-height extension added to the west. Both sections are harled with ashlar margins. The original house features slightly projecting centre bays capped by a gable, with the main entrance on the first floor (piano nobile) approached by a T-shaped flight of steps. The doorway has a moulded, lugged and corniced architrave, replaced in 1904 with a diagonally panelled door. The first-floor windows are tall with segmental heads; the crowstepped gable contains two large symmetrical windows. The roof is lit by four swept dormers added in 1904, with an apex chimney. Ground-floor windows are small. At the rear, the original house retains much of its early character, with a gabled centre section featuring crowstepped detail and an apex stack, long first-floor windows, and a single gable attic window (one now blocked). Four swept dormers were added in 1904.

The 1904 west wing is two storeys with an attic and presents an asymmetrical facade. Its most prominent feature is a large bowed bay on the right rising the full height, containing three segmental-headed first-floor windows set between a band course, cornice and parapet. To the left stands a gabled bay with paired segmental-headed bipartite windows on the first floor and smaller flat-headed bipartite windows in the attic, served by two swept dormers. The rear elevation is asymmetrically fenestrated with matching dormers.

Throughout the building, windows display 18- and 12-pane glazing on the first floor and 9-pane on the ground floor, with chamfered margins. The eaves are finished with a moulded cornice. Stacks on both sections are of ashlar with moulded cope and simple string course; those on the new wing were deliberately copied from the originals. Slate roofs cover the entire structure.

The interior retains significant original features. The south-west parlour preserves its 1738 panelling, including a lugged chimney piece, lugged doorcases and panelled doors. Early panelling survives in one rear room with a timber ceiling featuring geometric moulded panels. A continuous passage originally ran the length of the house from east to west at both ground and first-floor levels, linking the original structure with the new wing. However, the original staircase was removed in 1904 and replaced; the centre and left front rooms of the original range were then opened into one space to accommodate the new staircase and an extended entrance hall. The through passages between Westerdale and Flowerdale have since been closed.

A large rubble-built walled garden with dressed stone cope stands to the rear of the house.

The western two bays of the 1904 wing are now a separate dwelling named Westerdale, with the connecting internal passages now sealed.

The house is dated by inscriptions at the east gable skewputt, which displays the figures 17 on the south-east skewputts, with 38 and the initials AM carved at the north-east and IM at the north-west respectively. Flowerdale was the seat of the Mackenzies of Gairloch and is known to have been described as Tigh Dige by Osgood Mackenzie in his A Hundred Years in the Highlands (1921). The segmental-headed detailing to the front windows of the original house is likely a 1904 alteration. A small 19th-century ice house for salmon fishing remains in the hillside close to the entrance drive.