Balnakeilly House

Balnakeilly House

This is a 2-storey, 5-bay classical mansion house, probably designed by Charles Sim and dated 1821. The building incorporates remains of an earlier, possibly 16th-century house to the rear, with a late 19th-century extension beyond.

The main structure is built of squared and snecked dark whinstone rubble with contrasting polished and droved ashlar dressings. It features a deep base course, cavetto eaves cornice and blocking course, and is topped by a piend and platform roof. The principal architectural feature is the Doric-columned doorpiece on the south elevation, which sits within a slightly advanced centre bay reached by steps flanked by channelled balustrades with ball-finialled terminals (later additions possibly replacing earlier railings). The doorway itself has a moulded frieze, cornice and blocking course, with a 2-leaf boarded timber door topped by a sunburst fanlight. Above the door is an architraved window leading to a pediment containing a dated oval panel in the tympanum. The flanking bays contain windows to each floor, while the broad advanced outer bays have splayed windows to each floor, those on the ground level with Tudor hoodmoulds.

The west elevation has 3 windows to each floor grouped toward the left, including a door or window at the outer left with decorative cast-iron steps and handrails, and a lower blank bay to the outer left. The east elevation features a 3-bay arrangement on the upper storey with 3 windows on the ground floor, the centre window being blind (serving the kitchens), and a lower 2-storey wing projecting at the outer right. The north elevation has a window to each floor in a bay to the right of centre, with asymmetrical fenestration to a lower 2-storey wing projecting to the left (probably part of the original building) and a single storey wing to the right. A narrow courtyard to the rear contains further 2-storey ranges of largely unaltered late 19th-century offices with various architectural elements, including a small square timber tower with pyramidal roof.

Windows throughout are timber sash and case with 4- and 12-pane glazing patterns. The roof is covered in grey slates. The building has 4 sets of 4 symmetrically disposed octagonal stacks with cans serving the main building, and square and rectangular stacks with cans to the rear. A solar panel has been installed.

The interior retains fine decorative details. The entrance hall is reached through an arched recess into a large stairhall featuring a cantilevered U-plan stair with decorative cast-iron balusters and a margined multi-paned leaded stair window with a stained glass armorial panel inscribed 'NUNQUAM NON PARATUS'. The 1st floor landing is also cantilevered with arches leading to symmetrically planned corridors. Plain and decoratively-moulded plasterwork cornices are present throughout, along with panelled timber shutters featuring mouldings of neo-perpendicular tracery. Doors are now flush with reeded architraves.

A small sitting room to the west features a gothic-detailed chimneypiece of green Tilt marble. Beyond lies a large drawing room, with its north end screened by a wide semi-elliptical arch. This room contains a fine Ionic-columned Carrara marble chimneypiece with a central panel of a female figure on a cornucopia and side panels depicting tambourine and lyre players, all in shallow relief. The associated grate is of superb quality, cast-iron with fluted Ionic columns and decorative brass mountings. A small library to the east has a single wall of reeded bookcases and a grey marble Doric-columned fireplace. The kitchen, formerly the dining room, lies beyond with a black marble Doric-columned fireplace. A small room behind, previously the schoolroom and now the dining room, has a simple timber chimneypiece and a single window opposite. The 1st floor woodwork is lighter in character, with the principal bedroom over the drawing room featuring a reeded chimneypiece.

The garden wall to the west is a fine example of flat-coped, narrow-bonded rubble, extending approximately 40 yards (36 metres) in length. Coped boundary walls are accompanied by square-section gatepiers with wheatsheaf finials (modern) and ironwork gates flanked by quadrant walls.