Ballathie House Hotel

Ballathie House Hotel

A large gabled shooting lodge and country house dating to circa 1850s, with baronial turrets positioned at the angles. The building forms a long rectangle on plan, with a principal two-storey main block and a lower single-storey wing with attic accommodation extending to the east and northeast, projecting slightly at the northwest entrance front to create an L-shaped plan.

The walls are constructed from grey sandstone, laid as stugged and snecked rubble masonry with droved ashlar dressings. The main house block features a sequence of plain bargeboarded gables over projecting bays, with smaller bargeboarded gablets above dormer-headed windows. The windows are single and bi- and tripartite mullioned openings, incorporating plate glass sash and case glazing with moulded horns to the frames; the upper sashes are one-third the height of the taller lower sashes, which are two-thirds in height. Leaded casement windows also feature. A series of projecting canted windows at ground floor level on the south and southeast elevation overlook the River Tay. The building retains a large number of original blind boxes. The pitched roofs are slated with tall axial ridge stacks, timber bracketed overhanging eaves, and timber corbel courses. The baronial turrets have slated conical roofs with apices decorated with lead flashings and iron finials.

The northwest entrance elevation displays a single-storey parapetted Baronial porch to the right, fronting a gabled bay. The parapet is pierced on either side of a sculptural armorial shield set within a raised segmental arch at the centre. Vigorous Scottish Renaissance style masonry scroll and obelisk finials crown the outer rounded angles of the porch. A telescoping three-stage turret rises to the left, with a modern slate-roofed single-storey addition positioned further left in the northeast re-entrant angle.

The southwest elevation is short and features two symmetrical gables with canted windows projecting at ground floor, flanking a large mullioned and transomed stair window at the centre, with leaded casement windows. A telescopic three-stage turret stands to the left.

The river-facing southeast garden elevation presents a symmetrical five-bay gabled composition, two storeys high with gabletted dormers, and a single-storey wing with attic accommodation to the right. Canted bay windows at ground floor level of the centre and right-hand gabled bays step down to a terraced garden adorned with ornamental masonry vases.

The eastern wing comprises two parallel single-storey and attic wings with crowstepped gables, chimneybreasts and stacks running through the centres of symmetrical east gables, connected by a modern link, and crowstepped dormer-headed windows to the southeast.

The interior contains several extremely fine white marble chimney-pieces at ground and first-floor levels, executed in various styles, some with variegated coloured marble or scagliola slips. All retain original cast-iron grates, fire-backs, fenders, and fire-irons.

The entrance hall features a white marble neo-Greek chimney-piece with a reclining nymph bas-relief carving on the centre tablet of the frieze, Greek scroll key decoration, and a brass fender. The inner hall, positioned in front of the staircase, contains a white marble chimney-piece with fluted astylar columns tapered below, and is served by a timber staircase with twist balusters.

The ground-floor drawing room displays a vigorously detailed neo-Rococo white marble chimney-piece in the Brycian manner, featuring large scrolling leafed consoles set at a canted angle and a swirling scallop at the centre of the frieze, with a white marble fender. A compartmentalised Jacobethan style ceiling incorporates ornamental plasterwork embellishment (now removed), and a decorative frieze.

The dining room, which opens onto the terrace, has walls divided into panels and subdivided by Ionic pilasters framing a chimney-piece at the centre of the north-northwest wall. The fire surround is white marble with detached Ionic column stiles featuring canted volutes and a corniced shelf. The centre tablet displays a Roman mythological scene depicting Androcles and the Lion, flanked by garlands. The hearth is fitted with a very fine brass fender, grate, rails with large acorn finials, and a cast-iron splayed fire-back.