16 Eglinton Gardens, Skelmorlie

13 Montgomerie Terrace and 16A Eglinton Gardens, Skelmorlie

An Italianate villa designed by William N Tait in 1869–70, with a slightly later rear addition and late 1970s subdivision into two flats. The main building is 2-storey with attic, arranged in an L-plan across 3 bays, and features a prominent 3-storey crenellated entrance tower. A 2-storey canted bay window corbels out to form a gable at attic level. The deep, bracketed and corniced eaves are characteristic of the Italianate style. The former coach house and stable at 16 Eglinton Gardens is connected to the main house by a crenellated archway.

The exterior is constructed of stugged red sandstone with polished red sandstone ashlar dressings. A base course, cill course and eaves course run across the principal elevation. The tower is slightly jettied out at second-floor level. Rusticated long and short quoins and stone-mullioned windows articulate the principal elevation, with chamfered window margins throughout.

The west (principal) elevation presents a roll-moulded arched entrance porch at the base of the tower, supported on tapered piers with simple capitals and a prominent keystone. Two-leaf glass doors occupy the porch opening, with plain rondels to the spandrels and arched lights to the returns. Inside the porch sits a 2-leaf timber panelled front door in an arched, stop-chamfered architrave. Hoodmoulded arched windows light the upper floors of the tower, topped by deep stone-bracketed eaves cornice and crenellated parapet. The 3-light canted bay window to the left corbels out to form the attic gable; a bipartite Tudor-arched window lights the gable apex with a bracketed cill. Bipartite windows occupy the right-hand bay.

The north (side) elevation includes an advanced section to the right with an entrance to 16A Eglinton Gardens, marked by a timber door and bracketed timber porch with slate roof. Two windows occupy the left return, with a pointed window to the gable apex. A recessed section to the left displays irregular fenestration and a timber boarded door.

The east (rear) and south (side) elevations show regular fenestration to the south, where a later glazed door breaks the ground floor. An advanced gable faces east, featuring a later swept roof over a first-floor extension and irregular fenestration, with a lean-to conservatory attached.

Throughout, plate glass fills timber sash and case windows. Corniced stacks with decorative red clay cans pierce the graded grey slate roof, fixed with metal flashings. Cast-iron rainwater goods with decorative brackets ornament the principal elevation.

The interior retains highly decorative floral cornicing to the principal rooms, with some plaster ceiling roses; bedroom cornicing is plainer. The ground-floor drawing or dining room is panelled to dado level and contains a display cupboard with glazed doors and a timber chimneypiece with thin paired pilasters. The kitchen includes some early 20th-century cupboards. A timber staircase with carved newel posts rises through the house, formerly lit by an arched stained glass window. Circa 1921 stained glass in the bathroom windows and doors depicts sailing boats. The flat at 16A features a circa 1938 Art Deco bathroom with black vitrolite tiles, a circular mirror over a built-in cupboard, cream bathroom suite and chrome Art Deco taps.

16 Eglinton Gardens (the former coach house) is rectangular in plan, gabled to east and west, with irregularly spaced fenestration and many later openings. It is built of squared, snecked sandstone with concrete tiles to the roof. The crenellated link-wall connecting it to the house features a raised central section bearing a blank shield, with a stop-chamfered depressed arch and blind arrow-slits on each side.

A stone terrace occupies the rear of the house, accessed by 14 sandstone steps with a coped side wall. A timber-boarded access door provides entry to a brick drainage channel running beneath the terrace.

Two-leaf cast-iron gates hang from square-plan gatepiers, crenellated with stop-chamfered margins and shallow pyramidal caps. The boundary wall is flat-coped red sandstone.