Bengarth, Mount Ericht Road, New Rattray

Bengarth, Mount Ericht Road, New Rattray

Built after 1860, Bengarth is a Scots Baronial style house of single and two storeys with a raised basement, set on steeply falling ground to the southwest. It comprises a three-bay composition in squared and snecked sandstone rubble with a bull-faced basement, dressed quoins and margins, and a rendered gable to the left on the southwest elevation. The building features an eaves course, crowstepped gables, corbels, pedimented window heads, arrow slits, stop-chamfered arrises, and stone mullions throughout.

The southwest (garden) elevation presents a monumental frontage dominated by crowstepped gables and the raised basement. A slightly set-back bay at the centre has asymmetrical fenestration including a gunloop and a stair window positioned close to the eaves above. A broad gabled bay projects at the left with a basement window and a canted five-light window to the ground floor, topped by a blocking course that gives way to decorative ironwork balustrade and a set-back window at first floor level. A narrower gable occupies the bay to the right, with a basement window, a five-light canted window corbelled to a further canted angle at ground floor, and a bipartite window at first floor.

The northeast (Mount Ericht Road) elevation features a tall crowstepped gable to the outer left with a window to the right and a gunloop to the left at ground level, a further window to the centre above, and a corbelled outer left angle. A narrow blank bay sits at the centre, while a broader gable to the right displays stepped corbelling. A pitch-roofed porch with a boarded timber door projects on the return to the right, projecting into the boundary wall, and two windows occupy the first floor.

The southeast elevation contains a modern conservatory at ground level with a deep-set porch (the original main entrance) to the right, leading to a six-panelled timber door at the outer right. A corbelled M-gable crowns the first floor, with the right gable crowstepped and the left gable featuring a broad gablehead stack, both with two windows and a recessed centre feature. A further window to the first floor of a set-back bay appears at the outer left, along with a satellite dish.

The northwest elevation presents a single storey and raised basement with a bowed bay projecting at the left. This bowed bay contains a window to the curved elevation and two further windows on the return to the right, positioned above a lean-to porch with a part-glazed timber door in a re-entrant angle at basement level. A taller set-back face rises above with a window to the right at first floor, breaking the eaves into a stone pediment.

The building employs multi-pane and plate glass glazing patterns in timber sash and case windows, with canted windows to the southwest featuring coloured top lights and a margined stair window. The roof is covered in grey slates with coped ashlar stacks (some with cans), ashlar-coped skews, cast-iron downpipes, and decorative rainwater hoppers with cast-iron fixings.

The interior contains fine decorative plasterwork cornices and ceiling roses, panelled shutters, and brass sash lifts. Fireplaces feature grey marble and timber surrounds, the latter with fluted pilasters, corniced overmantels with mirrors, and tiled cheeks. The porch displays an encaustic-tiled floor and glazed ceramic-tiled dado, leading to a stair hall with a cantilevered dog-leg staircase featuring turned balusters. A boarded dado in the bathroom retains traditional china basins and pedestals. An early hand pump is retained in the basement.

An ancillary building occupies the northwest of the site. Single storey and with a raised basement, it comprises three bays under a piended slated roof in squared rubble. The southeast elevation features a bay to the right with a round-headed pend entrance, a small window at approximate centre with a corbelled polygonal stack immediately to the left, and a bay to the left with a lean-to porch containing a modern timber door and a single window above that breaks the eaves into a semicircular head. The southwest elevation displays a window to the basement and ground floor (the latter breaking the eaves into a pedimented dormerhead), and two horizontally-aligned gunloops at the right. The northwest elevation contains a bipartite window to the left of centre and a broad wallhead stack to the right. The northeast (Mount Ericht Road) elevation is blank, incorporated into the boundary wall.

Coped rubble boundary walls with ball- and pyramidally-finalled square-section gatepiers enclose the property.