Statue, Graemeshall

Graemeshall is a 2-storey house with attic, comprising a 6 by 4-bay asymmetrical Scots Jacobean manor house with crowstepped gables, a chapel, and various courtyard additions. It was designed by Alexander Malcolm Sutherland Graeme and Margaret Isabel Neale for John A Bruce and William B Peace between 1874 and 1898.

The house replaces an earlier 16th-century single-storey dwelling, and subsequently a 2-storey house with attic built in 1626. Between 1874 and 1876, the existing south block was demolished and rebuilt over the former courtyard. From 1896 to 1898, the south block received pedimented and scroll-sided dormers, the 17th-century north block was replaced, a small service courtyard was added to the east, and a single-storey chapel was built forming the south range. The 19th-century additions incorporate 17th-century architectural details.

The building is harled with a string course between ground and first floors. Windows feature chamfered reveals and are mullioned and transomed. Dormers are finialled and pedimented. The wallhead stack is modillioned, and oriel windows feature on the west elevation.

The west (entrance) elevation comprises six bays grouped 2-2-1-1, with a parapeted single-storey entrance bay between crowstepped-gabled blocks. The entrance doorway is roll-moulded with a round arch and features a mullioned 2-pane fanlight; a dormer window sits behind the parapet above. The right gabled bay contains a 3-light window at ground level, an oriel window at first floor, and an attic window to the gablehead. The left gabled bay has a tripartite window at ground level, a bracketed wallhead stack rising through the gable apex, and two bracketed pedimented windows bearing the initials 'MSG' and 'MIN' at first floor, with two attic windows flanking above. A 2-bay block set back to the outer left contains small stair windows at each floor in the right bay, a non-aligned dormer window above, and windows at each floor in the outer left bay.

The south (garden) elevation shows a 4-bay main block with a single-storey 2-bay chapel to the right. The main block contains a 3-light parapeted square bay spanning two bays at ground level, windows in each bay at first floor, and a dormer set between above. To the right, there are large 2-light and single windows at ground and first floors respectively, with a dormer above in each bay. The chapel has tripartite windows in each bay.

The rear (courtyard) elevations comprise irregularly fenestrated single and 2-storey ranges incorporating a small courtyard and some 17th-century features.

The interior is now used as a private museum. The vestibule features an encaustic tiled floor, a glazed timber-framed screen with leaded stained glass panels flanking a 2-leaf door, bossed architraves to timber-panelled doors, and timber skirtings. Operational timber-panelled shutters are present throughout the ground floor.

The drawing room contains a deep cornice with egg and dart border and timber panelling below the windows. The dining room has a modillioned cornice with egg and dart border, shutters to the mullion reveals, and two display recesses—a deep boarded example to the south wall and a larger carved timber-panelled version to the north wall. The breakfast room features an egg and dart cornice and a timber fire surround with fluted capitals below the cornice. The library is fitted with timber-architraved full-height purpose-built bookshelves and an anthemion cornice.

The main staircase is a timber dogleg with timber balusters, handrail, and an octagonal panelled newel post. A secondary back staircase is also timber dogleg with a timber handrail, turned balusters, and newel posts.

The chapel interior is a simple rectangular space with a carved timber alter raised on a stepped platform at the east end, a boarded and fielded ceiling, and wall-mounted grave slabs to the north and west walls. A leaded stained glass window is positioned to the south.

Boundary walls are of rubble with coping. Square-plan sandstone ashlar gatepiers with pyramidal concrete caps stand to the east of the main house.

To the north is a large square-plan walled garden with coursed rubble walls, tall square-plan piers with concrete copes, and remnants of greenhouse walls in the south wall. To the south (front) of the house is a further sunken garden at the centre, possibly representing a 15th-century courtyard design now largely gone. A rubble wall incorporating a roll-moulded round-arched doorway from the 17th-century house survives. Monumental statues of Faith, Hope and Charity stand along the east wall.