Geilsland School, Geilsland Road, Beith

Geilsland School, built circa 1870, is a large gabled two-storey Gothic villa constructed for William Fulton Love, a writer and bank agent in Beith. The building was erected on land he acquired in 1867 and represents a substantial example of Victorian Gothic domestic architecture.

The villa is built in squared and snecked cream sandstone with dressed ashlar margins and a battered base course. It has an asymmetrical plan with pointed-arched fenestration set within chamfered surrounds, broad bracketed eaves, and plain bargeboarding. A distinctive octagonal service stair turret (stairs now removed) rises from the building, finished with a fishscale slated octagonal roof and tall finial. The building is topped with blue-grey slates and corniced ashlar ridge stacks with octagonal clay cans.

The principal east elevation features a buttressed, gabled open porch in a re-entrant to the southeast. This porch contains a dwarf Gothic arcade with pierced quatrefoils below, and the pointed entrance arch carries pierced decoration with a trefoil above to the gablehead. Three pinnacles cap the porch, each topped with a fleur-de-lis finial. Within the porch stands an integral stone bench with an encaustic tiled floor, and the entrance is a timber boarded two-leaf vestibule door with wrought-iron hinges. An advanced bay to the right of the porch features a tripartite window at ground level with a balconied bipartite window above.

The west (rear) elevation contains two principal bays with further bays to the left, including a tripartite window to the right and a canted quadripartite bay to the left with a pierced stone balustrade above. Two bipartite windows light the first floor. The south elevation has a tripartite window to the right, a canted quadripartite bay to the left with a pierced stone balustrade and tripartite window above, and a balconied bipartite window to the first floor right. The north elevation has a modern single-storey projecting wing to the right.

The interior retains a fine, well-detailed decorative scheme. Timber panelled doors are set in roll-moulded architraves, and elaborate Gothic-style cornices and ceiling roses ornament the ground floor (though only two chimneypieces survive from the original scheme). The lobby features a pointed-arched chimneypiece with cornice and small plinth, with an encaustic tiled hearth. The former drawing room opens through a Tudor-arched opening to a bay window on the south side. The former dining room displays an elaborate Gothic plasterwork cornice. The morning room contains a Gothic oak chimneypiece with flanking paired engaged columns supporting the mantelpiece, finished with a red tiled slip.

The hall and staircase, accessed through a pointed-arched opening, contains a timber staircase with turned balusters and square newel posts topped with bud finials. Most notably, a distinctive Gothic ashlar dwarf arcade or screen (echoing the external porch) extends across the half-landing, featuring polychrome marble columns with plain leaf capitals. Above, a rectangular coved surround to a cupola features elaborate plasterwork and a timber Tudor-Gothic frame supporting a twelve-light leaded and stained-glass window installed in 2000. The original timber plate glass sash and case windows throughout retain their carved internal foils.

The building is likely by Robert Samson Ingram (1841-1915) of J & R S Ingram, Kilmarnock. Comparable architectural details, particularly in the columned entrance porch, appear in Ingram's known works including the Gothic semi-villas at 28 and 30 Portland Road, Kilmarnock.

The house was built on five acres which William Fulton Love had "enclosed and planted with much taste" according to Cuninghame Topographized by Timothy Pont, published by James Dobie in 1876. Love married Jessie, daughter of William Love of Hamilfield and Mary Kerr of Gatend, and fathered two sons, John and Robert, and five daughters. Geilsland Road was originally known as "Gillsland Road"; the area was marked as "Neelsland" on Pont's map.

In 1964, the Church of Scotland established a Special School at Geilsland, which continues to operate on the site. To commemorate the millennium and the school's work, the hall stained-glass windows were commissioned from artist Gail Muir in 2000 and depict the activities taught at the school. Work undertaken in 2002 removed some of the 1960s additions to the building.