Walled Garden, Nisbet House

Nisbet House is a substantial house dating to around 1630, with a tower addition to the west constructed in 1774 and later alterations. It is a combination of a Z-plan and a T-plan main block built in a traditional style, with a classical addition later incorporated. The house is four storeys high with an attic, comprising a seven-bay main block and a four-storey two-bay tower addition. The main block is faced in painted harl with ashlar dressings, while the tower is of coursed sandstone with ashlar dressings. The main block has an eaves course, while the tower features a band course defining each storey, a dentilled cornice, and a coped castellated parapet.

The south elevation has an irregular distribution of bays. Windows to the first, or principal, floor are larger, with each storey above diminishing in scale; the second-floor windows are comparable in size to those at ground level and the raised basement. Outer bays are treated as engaged towers, featuring a fine ashlar pilastered and corniced doorpiece on the outer left. Gunloops of an unusual design are scattered across the elevation. The tower has a window to each storey of each bay, except for a later bipartite window at ground level to the right of the bay to the left, and a window to the outer right.

The west elevation includes a window at ground level. Upper-floor windows are ornamental with rusticated margins in a Gibbsian style. A Venetian window is present at the first, or principal, floor, with a corniced and keystoned window on the second floor and a pedimented window with a keystone on the third floor.

The north elevation was not visible in 1996.

The house has 12-pane timber sash and case windows, and 24-pane timber sash and case windows to the first, or principal, floor of the main block and to the upper three storeys of the tower. The roof is slate, with piended dormers in the centre and penultimate bay to the right of the south elevation, on the main block, and a modern roof light to the penultimate bay to the left. Conical roofs top each outer bay of the main block, each with a cast-iron finial. An ashlar coped stack is located in the bay to the inner right, with a rendered coped stack at the apex of a crowstep-gable between the penultimate and outer bay to the right.

The interior was not viewed in 1996.

A walled garden and gardener’s cottage are located to the east. A cottage is situated to the north, which was not observed in 1996. A vault, located to the west of the house, contains an earth-covered mausoleum with a key-blocked entrance arch, holding largely 17th and early 18th century grave-slabs belonging to the Carr family. This was also not viewed in 1996.