Orchil House

Orchil House

A large Baronial mansion designed by Andrew Heiton junior in 1868, executed in the manner of David Bryce. The building displays picturesque, asymmetrical elevations, predominantly two-storey with partial basement to the north and east. The main elevations are constructed in vigorous bull-faced squared sandstone masonry with polished ashlar dressings, crowstepped skews and beaked skewputts. The roof line is boldly profiled with conical-roofed angle bartizans and crowstepped gables. A square-plan tower with pitched-roof caphouse occupies the centre of the south front.

Single-storey service wings project to the north, with an arched gateway and screen walls enclosing a service court in that direction. Windows are predominantly single-storey rectangular and arched types, and mullioned and transomed windows with multi-pane sash and case glazing. Ground floor glazing was replaced after 1919 with smaller, Edwardian panes. The roof is slated with lead flashings, finials and masonry ball finials.

The west (entrance) elevation comprises four asymmetrical bays, two-storey with parapet and corbelled bartizans at the angles. The entrance is set in a projecting two-storey and attic gabled bay with rounded angles at ground floor, corbelling to square at first floor, and a crowstepped gablehead. The doorpiece features a segmental arch with vigorous bolection and nail-head moulding, and a moulded string carries round a square heraldic sculpture panel above. The doors themselves have been altered. Above at first floor are paired windows, with the wall plane slightly jetted over a stepped string-course. At attic level are paired arched lights with stilted-arched blind tympanums in the gablehead. A turret in the southwest re-entrant angle corbels from the first floor as a quarter-circle plan, then corbels to square at attic level, with a tall pyramidal slated roof. Two bays set back to the right contain a single mullioned and transomed projecting window at ground over the centre of the bay, two single-light windows at first floor, and a dormer-headed attic window with triangular pediment breaking the parapet. Two bays of single-storey and single-storey and loft service wings are slightly recessed to the left, with a raggle line of a demolished conservatory visible over the gabled end bay.

The north (service court) elevation shows crowstepped end gables of the main north-south blocks. The centre bay features a triple-arched stair window, reglazed with modern obscured glass, and decorative leaded glazing appears at the first floor window of the far left-hand bay.

The east elevation comprises a four-bay main block to the left in a shallow L-plan, with two set-back bays featuring a six-light mullioned and transomed projecting window bay at ground and basement level, and two small widely-spaced windows at first and attic. Attic windows have triangular pediments and finials flanking an attached wallhead chimney. A projecting two-storey, attic and basement circular tower stands off-centre to the right. A full-height narrow crowstep-gabled bay links to the right. A single-storey and basement subsidiary block with a rounded southeast angle corbels at wallhead, with the left-hand skewputt at lower level right, creating an asymmetrical gablehead. Crenellated walls of terracing lie to the east.

The south elevation contains five bays, two-storey and two-storey with attic, displaying advanced and recessed wall-planes. Symmetrical canted projecting window bays flank the centre, corbelling to square halfway up the attic storey with crowstepped gables. The segmental-arched tympana of the first floor windows are incised with geometrical star and flower motifs. A four-stage square-plan tower with crowstep-gabled cap-house stands off-centre to the left, with rounded angles at ground corbelling to square at first, second and third stages. A fine shallow three-light oriel corbels at the second storey (which contains two shorter floors within the second and third stages), with windows divided by mannered pilasters with stilted polygonal heads and bead moulding in caps; curved sash and case windows appear throughout, and the oriel merges above with elaborate corbelling at a machicolated and crenellated parapet, the cap-house set back above. Two plainer bays recessed off-centre to the right have a crenellated parapet at wallhead.

The interior has been largely stripped of its original scheme, but the central great hall retains some post-war reinstatement work, possibly by Andrew Grainger Heighton (nephew of Andrew Heiton junior). This includes a dog-leg stair with timber staircase with turned balusters and a Roman Doric columned screen at ground level, with capitals featuring canted volutes. Three-quarter height wainscoting in the hall is mostly lost, though it partially survives at the fireplace projection. A segmental-arched, bolection-moulded Jacobethan chimney-piece of polished ashlar appears in the hall, with a similar but broader segmental-arched Jacobethan bolection-moulded chimney-piece in the drawing room.

The house was fire-damaged and reinstated during the First World War, circa 1919. It represents the best surviving house from Andrew Heiton's middle period.