Summerhill With Ancillary Structure, Beanburn, Ayton

Summerhill is a house dating from around 1870, with later additions and alterations. It is a two-story, three-bay building of near L-plan form, built in a domestic Gothic and Tudor style, with a lower two-story addition to the rear in the re-entrant angle, and various single-story additions. The main house is constructed of coursed and tooled sandstone with sandstone ashlar dressings, featuring a base course and corbelled eaves in parts. Sandstone quoins are present, alongside long and short surrounds to stop-chamfered openings, sandstone mullions, and chamfered cills. Stylized hoodmolds are a decorative feature throughout. A single-story ancillary structure is located to the northwest.

The northeast (entrance) elevation has a step leading to a two-leaf timber panelled door, offset to the right of center, complemented by a plate glass fanlight, a stop-chamfered surround, hoodmould, and a modern bracketed canopy. A bipartite window is centered at the first floor, featuring a segmental-arched hoodmould with a carved tympanum. A circular opening is centered in the gablehead, surmounted by an apex stack. Bipartite windows flank the entrance at ground level, with molded lintels and hoodmolds. The first floor features aligned bipartite windows with molded triangular heads; blind circular openings are centered within finialled gabled dormerheads that break the eaves, with a single-story addition extending to the outer right.

The southeast (side) elevation shows a full-height gabled wing projecting to the outer right, with a tripartite window centered at ground level, molded lintels, and hoodmould. A bipartite window is aligned at the first floor with a molded lintel and segmental-arched hoodmould with carved tympanum, and a circular opening centered in the surmounting gable. A bipartite window is located in a single-story projection in the re-entrant angle to the left, above a narrow, pointed-arched window. A bipartite window is at ground level in the bay to the outer left, with molded lintels and hoodmould. Another bipartite window is aligned at the first floor, with molded triangular heads, a decorative sandstone balcony to the front, and a blind circular opening centered in a finialled gabled dormerhead breaking the eaves.

The northwest (side) elevation features a full-height gabled wing projecting to the outer left, with a single-story addition at ground level, and a bipartite window at the first floor, offset to the left of center; a blind circular opening is centered beneath the surmounting stack. A full-height block is recessed to the right, with various single and two-story additions to the front.

The windows are predominantly plate glass in timber sash and case frames. The roof is covered in grey slate with stone-coped skews, molded skewputts with engaged columns clasping the corners below, corniced sandstone apex stacks with circular cans, and cast-iron rainwater goods supported by sandstone corbels at the eaves.

The interior of the main house and ancillary structure were not inspected in 1998.

The ancillary structure is single-story, built of heavily-pointed sandstone rubble with some red brick. It has boarded timber doors and a grey slate roof with a brick-built ridge stack and a single circular can.

A coped rubble boundary wall partially encloses the site.