Hope Park Home, Balmoral Road, New Rattray

Hope Park Home, Balmoral Road, New Rattray

Hope Park Home is a substantial mid-19th century house with a 1951 extension, combining Victorian Gothic aesthetics with practical additions. The main building is a large single and two-storey structure with a part basement, arranged as a three-bay gabled house enriched with Tudor-inspired details. The most striking feature is a three-stage corniced entrance tower, complemented by a stone porch and a sympathetic later extension.

The exterior is rendered in whitewashed harl with contrasting yellow sandstone dressings that emphasise the architectural detail. A deep roll-moulded base course grounds the composition. Throughout, the building displays sophisticated stonework including shouldered doorways, hoodmoulds, corbels, chamfered arrises and stone mullions typical of the period.

The principal (west) elevation centres on the entrance tower, flanked to the left by a bay with a bipartite window at ground level and a single window above that breaks into a dormerhead. To the right stands a broad gabled bay with a full-width, slate-roofed stone porch on ashlar piers, forming two shouldered openings with a matching single opening on its return. A corbelled chimney breast rises at first-floor level into the gablehead, topped by a shouldered stack. A single-storey wing extends further left, featuring a canted window in a slightly advanced gabled bay and two additional windows.

The entrance tower rises as an advanced square-plan structure. At its first stage, a single window faces west, while a hoodmoulded window with decorative cast-iron balconette on moulded consoles marks the principal elevation. The south elevation holds a shoulder-arched panelled timber door at first stage with a window above, whilst the east elevation is blank. The third stage opens with windows to west, south and north, each breaking the eaves into a pedimented dormerhead. The tower is crowned with a pyramidal roof dressed with decorative ironwork weathervane.

The south elevation displays three original bays to the left of centre. A broad projecting canted bay features a decorative cast-iron balconette at first-floor window level, with a blind shield to trefoil moulding over the centre light and decorative timber braces at the outer angles of the pendant-finialled gablehead. A single polygonal stack pierces the right roof pitch. To the right, the original bays have been altered at ground level with a gabled single-storey extension, whilst the first-floor retains two original windows, each breaking eaves into dormerheads. Three later symmetrical bays continue further right, dressed with hoodmoulded windows at ground and dormerheaded windows at first floor.

The north (rear) elevation shows a complex gabled composition with broad gables flanking a small centre gable, a lower gabled service wing projecting to the right, and a set-back extension to the left.

The east elevation presents a single gabled bay with centre French windows at each floor, flanking windows to other bays, and a fire escape.

Throughout, the fenestration employs four-pane and plate glass glazing in timber sash and case windows. The roofs are covered in grey slates, banded to the tower and single-storey wing. Shouldered harl and ashlar stacks carry a full complement of polygonal cans. The eaves are deeply overhanging with decorative bargeboarding, whilst decorative cast-iron and timber finials punctuate the roofline. Cast-iron downpipes with decorative rainwater hoppers and fixings complete the external finish.

The interior retains significant decorative plasterwork, including cornices with elaborate guilloche bands framing four types of diminutive mask. A timber-balustered staircase, enclosed in timber panelling, rises with finialled newel posts. The reception rooms feature an Arts and Crafts style timber fire-surround and overmantel with cast-iron canopy and grate, and tiled slips.

To the northwest stands a small rectangular-plan walled garden, bounded by an ashlar-coped brick wall to the southeast and a coped rubble wall to the northwest.

The boundary treatment comprises ashlar-coped squared rubble walls with inset decorative ironwork railings facing Balmoral Road, where two pairs of pyramidally-coped square-section ashlar gatepiers mark the entrances. Coped rubble boundary walls enclose the site elsewhere.