Achnacarry House

Achnacarry House is a near-square, symmetrical castle-style mansion built between 1802 and 1837, designed by James Gillespie Graham though not completed to his original design. Alexander Ross added to the building in the later 19th century.

The main block rises to 2 storeys and an attic above a raised basement, with 7 bays to both north and south facades and 5-bay side elevations. An asymmetrical single-storey service wing over a raised basement extends to the southwest. The entire structure is built in coursed rubble with contrasting tooled and polished sandstone dressings, featuring long and short detailing to the windows.

The south entrance front has a slightly advanced centre section of 3 bays. The central doorway is set within a painted polished ashlar doorpiece with panelled pilaster strips, surmounted by a cornice with ball finials and a centre strapwork cartouche bearing a shield. The facade is punctuated by long narrow side windows; at the first floor, a centre round-headed window is linked to smaller similar flanking windows (the east one blind) by a continuous hoodmould.

The north facade features a wide centre section containing three windows set within a bowed bay that rises through all 3 storeys above the raised basement. The east elevation is regular with 6 bays; the west side contains 6 bays as well, with a service court partially enclosed by a later Scottish Baronial service wing by Alexander Ross, which has a crenellated wallhead and a 2-bay south facade with a secondary entrance to the mansion.

The ground floor has longer windows, mostly with 2-pane plate glass glazing and intersecting astragals in the centre front 3 bays; elsewhere, hoodmoulds survive above the upper floor windows. The wallhead is corbelled and crenellated, with quatrefoil detailing in the south front parapet flanking the centre advanced section. This central portion features a raised central panel filled with exaggerated fluted detail and corbelled angle bartizans with blind cruciform detailing. Similar dummy bartizans appear at all corners except the northwest, where an angle stair-tower is corbelled out from ground level and rises through 3 storeys.

The roof is a piended platform slate roof with 3 piended dormers on the east side and 4 on the west. Very long paired flue batteries run parallel along the line of internal cross walls, aligned to the outer edges of the centre platform, with a glazed toplight lighting the stairs.

The interior contains a large centre stair hall rising the full height of the building, with a wide staircase by William Burn ascending on 3 sides with turned wooden balusters. The drawing room occupies the southeast, while the dining room lies to the north with a wide bowed bay window. Original chimney pieces survive in the drawing room, dining room, and library. The dining room chimney is a striking Neo-classical design with supporters in the manner of Thomas Hope. Decorative plaster ceiling cornices with central roses feature throughout, along with moulded door cases fitted with 6-panelled doors and panelled and beaded window shutters.

Achnacarry House was built near the site of the former Achnacarry Castle, which was destroyed by fire during the Duke of Cumberland's troops' actions in 1746; only a portion of its walling remains. James Hogg, in a letter to Sir Walter Scott describing a visit in 1803, wrote of "the new castle of Lochiel the building of which was then going brisky on, conducted by Mr John Gillespie architect" (Hogg being mistaken about Gillespie Graham's first name). The New Statistical Account describes the house as "a large, handsome and substantial building not yet finished".