Atholl Palace Hotel, Perth Road, Pitlochry

Atholl Palace Hotel, Perth Road, Pitlochry

A baronial hydropathic hotel designed by Andrew Heiton and built between 1875 and 1886. The building rises 3, 4, and 5 storeys with a raised basement and attic storey, arranged in an H-plan on steeply falling ground to the south-east. It features pavilion and conical roofs, semicircular and polygonal towers, a porte cochere, verandah, and crenellated bastion wall.

The structure is built in bull-faced squared and snecked rubble with raised bull-faced quoins and architraved surrounds, some dressed stone. Details include bolection coursers, a moulded eaves course, stone transoms and mullions, and stop-chamfered arrises throughout.

The north-west entrance elevation is symmetrical. A recessed gabled bay at the centre contains a single-storey vestibule with a piended porte cochere on cast-iron columns, topped by semicircular multi-pane fanlights. Flanking this are lower flat-roofed additions. The recessed central section displays four closely aligned windows to the first and second floors, and a bipartite window with deep-corniced head that gives way to a relieving arch in the gablehead, with a broad-shouldered stack straddling the ridge above. The flanking bays are further set back with largely regular fenestration to each floor and pedimented dormer windows. Projecting pavilion-roofed outer bays on each side feature decorative cast-iron brattishing; the left bay rises four storeys with three tall ground-floor windows and two windows to each upper floor leading to a pedimented tripartite dormer; the right bay extends five storeys with two windows per floor and a matching tripartite dormer. Inner returns on each side have dominant stacks breaking the eaves and regular fenestration.

The south-east elevation is symmetrical with dominant canted four-storey towers at the outer bays. Each tower has openings to each face of a battered raised basement, a nine-light wide-centre transomed tripartite window with relieving arch to each face of the tall first floor, tripartite centre windows with single flanking windows to the second and third floors, five small moulded-head windows to the circular fourth floor, and a deep cornice giving way to a single jerkinheaded dormer window and conical-roofed lantern. The recessed centre bays contain a glazed full-width verandah at ground level, with a slightly advanced gabled bay to the centre featuring paired decoratively-capitalled columns and round-arched timber bargeboarding. Flanking bays have dividing columns and decorative cast-iron railings, all supported on heavy ashlar columns at brick-infilled basement. Regular fenestration appears to the first and second floors, with jerkinheaded dormer windows and tiny conical-roofed semicircular towers in the re-entrant angles.

The south-west elevation is asymmetrical, featuring tall transomed windows to the ground floor, a conical-roofed canted tower in a bay to the left of centre, and two-bay five-storey bays to the outer left. A battlemented terrace with bartizans sits at the basement to the outer right.

The north-east elevation has been altered and includes a small polygonal tower projecting to the left, a battlemented terrace with a modern stair tower, and a full-height stack.

Windows are predominantly four-pane and plate glass in timber sash and case frames. Roofs are covered in grey slates. Chimney stacks are coped rubble with ashlar-coped skews and decorative cast-iron finials.

The interior retains fine plasterwork cornices and ceilings, panelled timber dadoes, and architraved doors. Identical cantilevered staircases in each outer tower feature timber balusters with ball-finialled newels. Marble fireplaces are present throughout. The ground floor retains much original detail, though bedrooms have been altered. The entrance hall features some coloured leaded glass. A hydropathic spa pool with segmental and round-headed arches survives.

Formal terraced gardens to the north-west include square-section piers, ashlar walls, and garden statuary.