Darnaway Castle

The kitchen range is part of Darnaway Castle, a mansion built between 1802 and 1812 by Alexander Laing on the site of an earlier castle. The castle fronts a re-cased mid-15th century building known as Randolph's Hall. A single-storey kitchen range extends westward.

The mansion is constructed of tooled red sandstone ashlar with polished ashlar dressings. The outer and central three bays are slightly advanced, with the central block rising to four storeys. A balustraded perron, dating to 1870, leads to a raised ground floor entrance, flanked by engaged columns linked by a balustrade displaying a coat of arms. A balustraded screen wall masks a raised basement.

Storeys are defined by band courses, and nearly all windows are hoodmoulded (pointed-headed on the raised ground and first floors of the central three bays) and connected by cill bands. The building features a crenellated wallhead with dummy angle bartizans, piended platform slate and lead roofs.

Randolph’s Hall has three long Y-traceried windows with stained glass on the east and west elevations, and a further window in the south gable. It has a crenellated wallhead matching the main frontage and a steeply pitched slate roof.

The kitchen range features pointed- and square-headed windows, some with intersecting tracery. A clock tower rises above the kitchen, with an open cupola surmounted by a leaded, multi-faceted dome with four small louvred lucarnes and a weathervane finial. A service court is enclosed by a high, buttressed wall built in 1920.

The interior features an entrance hall with an ornate plaster frieze and four marbled columns, leading directly to Randolph’s Hall, which contains a mid-15th century hammer beam roof, remodelled in 1802–1812 and again around 1900. Mirrored east and west stair halls and staircases are linked at the raised ground floor and first floor by long corridors with arches. The staircases have ornate cast-iron balustrades with lion's head detailing, and a decorative plaster ceiling in the stairwell. A drawing room contains a white marble chimneypiece and a plaster frieze with anthemion and urn decoration. The dining room has a screen of marbled columns separating a sideboard recess and a grey marble chimneypiece with fluted columns and a swagged frieze. The kitchen links to the dining room via a colonaded passage. Wide balustraded terraces run along the front of the main entrance and to the east.