Upper Dalhousie

Upper Dalhousie

A 2-storey rectangular-plan farmhouse dating to the early 19th century, with additions and alterations carried out in 1882. The building comprises a 4-bay main block with a 3-bay wing. It is constructed of tooled, pink squared and snecked sandstone rubble with droved dressings, featuring a base course, stop-chamfered reveals, and chamfered quoins.

The south-west principal elevation is asymmetrical, presenting 4 bays with the 3-bay wing to the left. The first floor features gabled windows with stone finials that break the eaves. A window sits in the penultimate bay to the left at ground floor level, with a 2-leaf modern door with letterbox fanlight in the flanking bay to the left. The penultimate bay to the left and the outer left bay display regular fenestration at first-floor level. The penultimate bay to the right contains a 3-light canted window forming an angle tower, topped with a dentil-moulded eaves cornice and an octagonal spire surmounted by an iron weathervane. The outer right features a recessed bay with a doorway enclosed by a stepped hoodmould framing a tooled panel inscribed "D 1882". This doorway contains a panelled timber door with letterbox fanlight, with a window above at first-floor level. A blank tablet is recessed in the gablehead, which is crowned with a crowstepped gable bearing a carved thistle at the apex. The wing is separated by a dividing band course, with irregular fenestration to its ground floor and a centred first-floor window flanked by bipartite windows to the adjacent bays.

The south-east elevation is asymmetrical, comprising 2 bays. The left bay displays a bipartite window with stepped hoodmould at ground-floor level and a gabled first-floor window with a sunken cross set in the gablehead and a stone finial. The crowstep-gabled right return contains windows to both ground and first floors, topped with a carved thistle at the apex. A blank recessed bay occupies the right side.

The north-east elevation is asymmetrical with 3 bays and a 3-bay wing to the right, featuring an eaves course and raised margins. The centre bay is blank, with windows in the flanking bays and a small window to the left. First-floor windows occupy the left and right bays. The wing, slightly recessed, exhibits irregular fenestration at ground floor and regular fenestration at first-floor level. A single-storey addition extends from the outer right.

The north-west elevation is asymmetrical with 2 bays. The left bay's ground floor is obscured by a gabled addition containing 2 boarded window openings, with a boarded timber door flanked to the left by a large sliding boarded timber door serving the left return. The right return contains a door flanked on its right by a window set in an infilled basket arch and another window set in the gablehead. The right gabled bay features a boarded timber door with 6-pane fanlight at ground-floor level, with the remainder blank.

Windows are predominantly 4-pane timber sash and case types. The roof is of grey slate, piended to the north, with lead ridges. Gablehead and shouldered wallhead stacks are of coped sandstone with circular cans. Cast-iron rainwater goods complete the exterior.

To the north of the house stands an ancillary structure of tooled random rubble with droved dressings. Its east and north elevations are blank, while the south elevation contains a sliding metal door. The west elevation has irregularly placed boarded timber doors and window openings. The structure is covered by a slate roof with rooflights to the north and corrugated iron roofing to the south, fitted with cast-iron rainwater goods.

An implement shed occupies the south-west of the house, constructed of tooled pink sandstone rubble in a V-plan arrangement that forms an open courtyard. The courtyard elevations are open and supported by cast-iron columns, with a ventilated slate piended roof featuring lead ridges.

To the east of the house are decorative 2-leaf cast-iron gates flanked by 2 polished sandstone ashlar gatepiers with stop-chamfered angles, blank friezes, corniced necks, and curved caps. A walled garden adjoins the house to the south, built of tooled random rubble with slab coping and an ironwork gate set in the north of the west wall.

The interior was not examined at the time of survey in 1998.