Kininvie House

Kininvie House is a tower house, likely dating back to 1523, with substantial additions made in 1610 and significant alterations in 1840 by William Robertson, followed by further changes in 1929-30. The house is predominantly two storeys over a raised basement, which reflects the sloping ground to the west, and it presents an irregular U-plan with an east-facing entrance front largely defined by the 1840 work.

The exterior is of harled rubble with contrasting polished ashlar dressings and tooled ashlar margins. The gabled east elevation features a recessed, round-headed entrance porch in an advanced gabled bay, accessed by steps that oversail the basement. Two long windows illuminate the 1840 library.

The irregular south garden front incorporates three distinct builds. The westernmost section is a four-storey tower house with an attic, dating to 1523. A drum-shaped stair turret projects from its upper stage, topped by a small, square caphouse. The original entrance is in the re-entrant angle, flanked by small gun loops and arrow slits. The central section, dating to 1610, is a three-storey, two-bay block which was remodelled in 1840. To the east is an advanced, gabled wing added in 1840, featuring large windows. The first-floor windows of the central section are set below gables, and bear a central armorial. Re-set armorial panels are found on the south and west elevations.

The windows are predominantly multi-pane with thick, moulded wooden mullions (one window has a transom). Angle bartizans were added in 1840, and original rolled moulded copes remain on the 16th and early 17th century stacks, with replicated marginal end and ridge stacks added in 1840. The roofs are slate.

A bay was added to the north, and the rear service area was remodelled during the 1929-30 alterations.

The interior of the 16th-century tower house includes a vaulted entrance lobby leading to a single room on each floor, served by a wheel stair, and featuring deep moulded cornices. The attic contains pegged and numbered roof timbers. The 1840 house has an entrance hall with sitting and dining rooms to either side. The dining room has re-used panelling installed in 1929, a reeded wooden chimney-piece, and a bracketed ceiling cornice.

The Drawing Room, formerly a late 16th-century first-floor hall, has a carved wooden Adamesque overmantel above a 1930s brick chimney-piece, a fine late 18th-century six-fielded panelled door with an overdoor and acanthus detailing, and plain fielded panels facing the passage. A staircase with ornate turned balusters, installed during the 1929 alterations, incorporates sets of three balusters with differing patterns. The library has a simple moulded ceiling cornice and a plain grey marble chimney-piece.