The House Of Narrow Gates With Outbuildings And Garden Structures

The House of Narrow Gates is a circa 1850 house with early 20th century additions attributed to J P Alison. The house is of irregular plan and comprises a roughly three-bay, piend-roofed block dating back to circa 1850, situated to the east, and a larger, early 20th century Baronial-style addition to the west, featuring a round, conical-roofed entrance tower, crowstepped gables and a corbelled bartizan at the southwest corner. The house is built with white-painted harl and red sandstone dressings, featuring a discontinuous eaves course, a cill course, and a crenellated parapet to the bartizan. The windows are predominantly fairly regular in design and contain stone margins, some of which are tabbed; unmargined windows have projecting cills.

The southeast entrance elevation displays a regular fenestration pattern for the original house on the right, with an advanced gable centrally placed. An entrance tower is incorporated into the right re-entrant angle. To the left, two irregularly-fenestrated bays are recessed, culminating in a single-bay gable and the aforementioned bartizan to the outer left section. A two-leaf timber-panelled front door is contained within a tabbed architrave. The southeast (garden) elevation is characterised by a bartizan to the right and an advanced canted bay to the left, which is corbelled out at the gable head. The rear elevation has fairly regular fenestration, with a roughly central, two-storey canted bay featuring a crenellated parapet.

The windows are timber sash and case with 12-pane glazing. The wallhead stacks are rendered and topped with red sandstone corniced copes and yellow clay cans. The roof is covered with graded grey slate, and the rainwater goods are cast iron.

The interior retains many early 20th century fixtures, some of which are similar to features found at Lessudden House. Features include a half-glazed timber-panelled lobby door, a handsome timber staircase with a heavy, balustraded banister, and two-panel interior doors with lugged doorframes, with green baize coverings to doors in service areas. Several chimneypieces remain; that within the drawing room is flanked by Corinthian pilasters. Decorative plaster cornicing and further plasterwork are found in the dining room.

Outbuildings include a piend-roofed apple house with timber-boarded doors, and a gabled potting shed with a stack and timber-boarded door, containing a cast-iron stove internally.

Garden structures include a sundial with a ball finial and the date 1739, located southwest of the house. There is an ashlar-coped, random rubble walled orchard. A balustraded pink sandstone retaining wall borders a sunken rose garden, incorporating curved steps and a wrought-iron gate decorated with birds, scrolled foliage, flowers, and initials. A terrace retaining wall with steps and flanking stone urns is situated southwest of the house, with further retaining walls and steps leading away to the southeast.