Stable, Stable Courtyard, The Glen

A substantial and architecturally ambitious stable complex designed by David Bryce in 1854, with additions and alterations carried out by Bryce again in 1874 and subsequently by Robert Lorimer around 1905. The ensemble comprises three buildings and a range arranged around a rectangular courtyard with canted corners, executed in coursed whinstone with stugged cream sandstone ashlar dressings featuring chamfered arrises, and cream sandstone entrance fronts.

The main stable block occupies the south-eastern position. It is a one-and-a-half storey, multi-bayed structure in the Scots Baronial style, with a prominent two-storey gabled entrance pend and projecting wing. The entrance elevation features a moulded arched entrance pend flanked by small stepped angle buttresses, containing two-leaf arched timber boarded studded gates with ornate scroll hinges and banding incorporating fleur-de-lis detail. Above the pend entrance sits a small central window with a round clock face, surrounded by rope moulding. The gable head has crowstepped sides with moulded kneelers and a stone finial. To the right extends a four-bay stable range with gun-loop ventilation at ground floor and a projecting balustraded parapet interrupted by four stone gabled wallhead dormers, the outer bays topped with thistle finials and the central bays with rose finials. An advanced bay to the right contains a canted entrance door in a re-entrant angle, with an angle tourelle rising to a gable end featuring corbelled stepped upper storeys.

Facing the courtyard, the stable block presents a plain arched entrance pend with remnants of a clock to the gablehead, adjoined by a six-bay elevation with door-flanked-by-window arrangements and a central ashlar niche containing an iron watering trough. Wallhead dormers with louvred ventilation sit above the third bay and between bays four and five; a timber gable crowns bays one and two, with various rooflights distributed across. The far left encloses a derelict store with a crowstepped gable end featuring curved angles at ground floor corbelling out to a square angle at upper level. A segmental-arched entrance with two-leaf timber boarded doors opens to the lower ground floor, with a window to the right. A central moulded plaque displays the heraldic arms of Glenconner of Glen, comprising two crescents with a boar's head surmounting, set to the first storey with a small gablehead window below.

The south-western range is a heightened vernacular structure with a wallhead gable-headed dormer to the exterior. Facing the courtyard, it presents four irregularly spaced bays at ground floor with alternating window and door fenestration, whilst the former upper floor shows seven now-blind horizontally placed rectangular windows. The wallhead has been heightened in a later phase.

The north-western coach house, older in character, displays three segmental-headed cart arches to the courtyard elevation, each fitted with two-leaf timber boarded doors with plain iron hinges. The upper level is broken by stone gable-headed dormers at the outer bays and a small off-centre rooflight. A single-bay conical stair tower adjoins to the extreme right, two storeys in height, with a ground-floor door, a small rear window at an intermediate storey, and a small upper-level window above the door. The semi-conical roof features a stone stalk and ball finial breaking a crow-stepped gable. The rear (north-west) elevation is blind at ground floor with three regularly placed stone gabled dormers breaking the eaves.

The later coach house, constructed to the south of the courtyard, features a long rectangular entrance at ground floor with paired two-leaf timber gates, chamfered at the angle to rise into a corbelled upper storey. The upper floor is distinguished by a pair of centrally placed stone gabled dormers with a triangular pitched ventilator to the roof. A conical stair tower with rear entrance door and upper-storey window adjoins the blind canted left return. The exterior north elevation displays four regularly fenestrated bays with slightly lower windows to bays three and four, interrupted by four aligned gabled dormers. The outer bays carry rose finials whilst the central bays have thistle finials; a carved plaque appears within the fourth bay dormer. A rounded angle at ground floor right, with squared upper angle corbelling out, and a canted ground floor left angle with corbelled tourelle to the upper floor complete the articulation.

An informal entrance to the north-west is flanked by a pair of tall, near-square ashlar gatepiers with projecting base courses and moulded flat caps, positioned adjacent to the stair towers of both the older and later coach houses.

The courtyard itself is flagged to the east, with herringbone brick paving to the west and within the entrance pend.

Throughout the complex, windows employ eight, nine and twelve-pane glazing in timber sash and case frames. The stable block includes a six-pane fanlight, whilst rooflights are of various Carron manufacture with large four-panel glazed sections lighting the stalls and louvred ventilators positioned in attic dormers. The pitched slate roofs incorporate stone ridging, with eaves courses carrying painted cast-iron rainwater goods. Gablehead stacks are tall ashlar structures with stepped bases, neck copes and plain cans, though some have been removed.

The crowstepped gables throughout feature moulded kneeler putts and assorted decorative stone finials.

Internally, the stable block retains a flagged ground floor with intact timber and decorative iron loose boxes fitted with attached timber saddle racks, moulded cornicing and doors with moulded surrounds. A stone stair with plain metal balusters and timber handrail ascends to the upper level, above which a central atrium opens to the stalls. The other buildings contain garaging at ground floor level in the converted cart and car arches, with fairly plain rooms to the upper levels. The rooms of the south-western range now run beneath the present swimming pool.