Rowchester House Walled Garden

Rowchester House Garden Terrace is a three-storey, five-bay country house, dating to circa 1830, with an upper storey and porch added in 1913-4 by Peddie and Forbes Smith. It is built in a symmetrical Jacobethan style, using sandstone ashlar. The house has a base course and a string course above the first floor. Hood moulds with decorative label stops are above the mullioned and transomed bipartite and tripartite windows on the ground and first storeys. The second storey features Tudor arch bipartite windows. Square, buttressed towers mark the corners. The added upper storey has plain gables and dormers.

The northeast (entrance) elevation is symmetrical, with a slightly projecting, gabled central bay. A projecting, castellated porch was added in 1913-4, featuring a boarded two-leaf door within a Tudor arch set in a decorative architrave. Flanking this door are multi-paned windows with ornate tracery, and a blind panel sits above. The southeast (garden) elevation has three bays slightly advanced between shouldered buttresses with a frieze of gargoyles above the first floor; leadwork above is dated 1914. A two-storey canted bay window is centrally positioned. The southwest elevation is also symmetrical, with a three-bay arrangement and a Gothic Y-traceried window between shouldered buttresses.

The windows are timber sash and case with plate glass. The roof is covered in graded grey slate, with cast iron rainwater goods. Tall, ornate, canted ridge stacks with shouldered details sit on ashlar plinths.

The interior was remodelled in the early 20th century but retains significant elements of the original 1830 layout. The drawing room retains its original design, featuring a large pointed arch to the bay window, ornate plasterwork to the ceiling, and a white marble Tudor arched fireplace. The entrance hall and a hall feature linenfold panelling and decorative chimney pieces. The upper stairhall is top-lit, with pointed arches supported by ornate corbels. Shallow pointed arch openings lead to the principal rooms. Bathrooms contain examples of early 20th century plumbing fixtures. Interior door architraves have carved surrounds featuring trefoil and quatrefoil details.

The garden terraces, dating from 1913-4, consist of two L-plan balustrades with square ashlar piers and ashlar coping, built on a saddleback coped, squared and snecked rubble dwarf wall, which forms a terrace to the south of the main house.

The walled garden, dating to 1830, is located to the northeast of the main house and is enclosed by a tall ashlar coped rubble wall with a dwarf wall and iron railings along the southeast wall. A lean-to structure is attached to the northwest wall. A red sandstone square-plan ashlar gate and corner piers provide access.

Gates and gate piers consist of round-plan piers topped with ball finials, iron gates with traceried upper panels in the centre, and outer pedestrian gates flanked by square-plan coped ashlar piers.