Farmsteading, Home Farm, Kailzie House

Farmsteading, Home Farm, Kailzie House

A substantial farmsteading of 1803, with extensions and improvements added in 1827. The complex comprises a one-and-a-half storey L-plan farmhouse, a one-and-a-half storey L-plan stables range, and a separate multi-gabled block of farm buildings including byres, pig sties, dairy, saw and threshing mill buildings. The entire complex retains a working water wheel and much original internal machinery. All buildings are constructed from whin rubble with squared whinstone or ashlar dressings, arranged around a cobbled courtyard.

The farmhouse has a regularly fenestrated northeast principal elevation with a projecting canted bay window to the centre, fenestrated with lying pane windows with whinstone margins and lintels and projecting gothic rectangular hoodmoulds. Single windows of similar style flank the bay. The bay window rises one-and-a-half storeys with a piended roof and central roof light. Pitched timber dormers with slated cheeks, exposed verge rafters and decorative bargeboards align with the outer bays. A blocking eaves course and pair of ridge stacks at the cross walls complete the elevation. The northwest elevation is an end wall with a boarded timber entrance door to the right, accompanied by a narrow letter-box fanlight and projecting rectangular hoodmould surmounted by an inset stone dated 1827. The southwest rear elevation features an advanced section to the left with a plain-margined window, and a much later small flat-roofed square-plan extension in the re-entrant angle with a similarly styled window to the centre.

The stables form a multi-bayed, one-and-a-half storey L-plan range creating a U-plan courtyard arrangement with the farmhouse to the northeast. Ground floor fenestration is limited, but stone wallhead dormers, added during a wallhead alteration, punctuate the main block. An arm advances northwest with a door near the re-entrant angle and a pair of segmental-headed cart arches with a dormer window to the half storey, aligned with a pier.

The saw and threshing mill, byres and sties form an irregular L-plan complex. The northeast principal elevation is dominated by a symmetrical mill to the right with a small segmental-headed window to the centre of the ground floor, flanked by segmental-headed doorways each containing later two-part timber barn doors. The first floor loft section is raised several courses with a centrally placed gabletted door fitted with two-leaf timber boarded doors breaking the eaves, flanked by droved long and short quoins and a blind oculus to the gablehead. Small square half-shuttered windows sit close to the eaves on either side, with two irregularly placed roof lights to the attic. The left return is a gabled end with centrally placed segmental-headed windows to both ground and first floors. Adjoining to the ground floor left is a single storey building with attic, featuring three segmental-headed cart arches to the ground floor (the outer arches now bricked-up, with two-leaf timber doors to the central arch), and a pair of roof lights to the attic with full-length ventilator near the roofline.

The northwest elevation displays a gabled end to the left with a segmental-headed window to the centre of the ground floor and a window above to the half storey. Outlines of adjoining pitched roof buildings, now lost, remain visible on the wall. To the right sits the side wall of an older mill extension with a door to the left. The southwest rear elevation shows the rear of the mill and byre with an advanced wide low gabled end of the older mill extension to the left, featuring an altered cart entrance to the centre of the ground floor and a door to the right. Evidence of a further adjoining structure survives in this area. The centre of the first floor retains an arched gothic window with some surviving timbers. The right side features an advanced end of the farm building with a stable door to the left and ventilation slit to the right, with advanced lean-to sties to the extreme right. The southeast elevation is largely a blind wall divided into three equal byres (formerly offices) by piended roofs, with an entrance door to the extreme left of the central dairy section. The left section is blind, whilst the right section forms the left return of the mill building. The central section extends to the rear by means of a swept catslide-style lean-to into four pigsties; the outer wall to this section is now missing.

Fenestration includes twelve lying-pane glazing in timber sash and case windows to the principal elevation of the farmhouse, with a four-pane window to the rear extension featuring a two-pane opening top hopper. Twelve-pane glazing appears in timber sash and case windows to the stables, and two-pane cast-iron Carron lights to the roof. Six-pane glazing in timber upper sashes with ventilators to the lower sashes survives in the hayloft windows; most other original glazing to the remaining buildings has been lost. Roofs are pitched, piended and lean-to slate with replacement metal ridging to the farmhouse and most buildings. Painted cast-iron rainwater goods are in place throughout.

Stacks are constructed from droved coursed ashlar with projecting neck copes and plain cans to the farm buildings. Taller stacks, some of which are replacements, incorporate ventilator cans and rise from the farmhouse.

The farmhouse and stables have been modernised and converted to residential use, whilst the farm buildings retain their original character and function. The sawmill retains original timber and cast-iron gearings, drives and a circular saw blade. A saw bench, not original, extends into the gabled north section. An overshot timber water wheel survives in working order.