Palace Hotel, Breadalbane Terrace, Aberfeldy

Palace Hotel, Breadalbane Terrace, Aberfeldy

The Palace Hotel is a substantial hotel building dated 1899, standing prominently on a corner site. It comprises 2 and 3 storeys with an attic and part basement, arranged in an L-plan with three bays. The building is dominated by a pyramidal roof over the corner tower and shaped gables on the prominent corner elevation.

The external walls are built of narrow bands of squared and snecked local green chlorite-slate rubble with contrasting red sandstone ashlar dressings. The base, band courses, and eaves cornice are all of stone. Doorways are segmental-arched with keystones, corbels, chamfered arrises, and raked cills. Stone transoms and mullions feature throughout.

The south-east elevation displays gabled outer bays, each with 4-part canted transomed windows under a shaped blocking course at ground and first floor levels. The second floor windows are widely-spaced bipartites, with single windows in the gable heads. A modern porch at the centre of the ground floor fronts a converted bipartite window, with a transomed bipartite above at first floor and a single window giving way to a swept roof and a tripartite dormer window with semicircular pediment.

The south (corner tower) elevation features a broad moulded keystoned doorcase with flanking marble columns on ashlar dies with weathered capitals. A deep cornice sits below a stone balustrade with flanking ball-finialled dies. The door itself is part-glazed, 2-leaf timber with a deep Art Nouveau-style coloured glass fanlight incorporating 'HOTEL' lettering in glass. A single window at first floor level is followed by a dentilled band course, a bipartite window above, and a further single window at attic level. This is surmounted by a cornice and pediment with a dated roundel on the tympanum and ball-finialled flanking dies. Behind sits a finialled 2nd Empire roof.

The south-west (Home Street) elevation has 3-storey bays to the right of centre. The outer bay features tall bipartite windows at ground and first floor, a single window at second floor, and a semicircular-pedimented dormer above. The centre bay contains two stair windows and a stone-pedimented dormer breaking the eaves. A blank right bay has a corbelled blind tablet abutting the first floor cornice and extending into a raised chimney breast piercing the eaves, with a pediment and scrollwork at the base of the stack. To the left of centre are 2-storey bays with a deep-set doorway to the right, a narrow window to the outer right, and two single transomed windows to the left at ground floor. Two bipartite windows sit above.

The north-east elevation displays varied elements and asymmetrical fenestration, with a brick extension in the re-entrant angle.

The north-west (rear) elevation has a 2-storey gable to the right with a small horizontal cellar window at ground floor and steps down to a timber door at left. A lower piended brick bay is set back at the outer left.

Throughout the building, windows are timber sash and case with multi-pane upper over 2-pane lower sashes and plate glass glazing patterns. Art Nouveau-style coloured leaded glazing features in the stair windows and upper sashes of the ground floor 2-storey bays on the south-west elevation. The roof is covered in grey slates with decorative terracotta ridge tiles. Coped ashlar stacks have terracotta cans and ashlar-coped skews. Cast-iron downpipes with decorative fixings are present throughout.

The interior includes a timber dog-leg staircase with carved and finialled newels and plain cornicing, along with brass sash lifts. Some timber fireplaces and boarded dadoes survive. The timber-lined public bar features a compartmented ceiling, cast-iron column, and a mural signed Watt(?) and dated 1961. The first-floor dining room has a glass panel on its doors etched with 'COFFEE ROOM'.

An ancillary building of rectangular plan is constructed in piended red brick with a timber door to the centre and flanking windows with 6-pane glazing pattern to the north-west. A small brick-voussoired opening with a boarded timber door is located on the south-east side.

Low saddleback-coped boundary walls with inset railings enclose the site.