Kirkwell House (former Rectory), Preston Road, Duns

Kirkwell House, formerly a rectory, was designed by Hay and Henderson and built in 1880. This two-storey, four-bay Baronial villa features squared and snecked stugged sandstone with polished ashlar dressings and chamfered reveals. The first-floor windows break the eaves.

On the southeast elevation, there is an advanced gabled bay on the centre-right, with a canted window at the ground level that has a base course and a solid coped parapet. The first floor features a bipartite window, partly within the gablehead. To the centre left, there is an entrance drum tower in the re-entrant angle, which has a roll-moulded doorway with a panelled door and a window beside the tower. Above, there is a single window at the first floor with a bracketed cornice, cresting, and finials (one finial is missing), along with a heavily corbelled balconette that has cast-iron brattishing. The central bays have a moulded string course at the level of the balconette and parapet. The outer bays contain windows on both floors, with gabled dormerheads at the first floor that have blind oculi, and bipartite windows in the left bay.

The east elevation features an M-gable with windows on the centre and right at ground level, and a small window at the first floor in the centre. A date stone on the east gable displays the year 1880.

The north elevation has four bays, with the left bay containing a panelled door at ground level (enclosed by a modern glazed porch) and a window at the first floor. The centre bays have an M-gable on a raised wallhead, with bipartite windows on both floors; the right one at the first floor is taller. There is a lean-to porch on the right at ground level with a small window and door on the right return, while the right bay has a small window at ground level.

The west elevation also features an M-gable, with windows at ground level in the centre and left, and a window to the left at the first floor. The building has timber sash and case plate glass windows, crowstepped gables, smooth ashlar coping on the dormerheads and rear gables, and corbel skewputts. Coped ashlar stacks are present, and the roof is covered with grey slates, featuring fishscale bands on the conical roof and terracotta ridge tiles. Decorative cast-iron rainwater heads are also present.

The boundary wall on the west side of the property is made of fine sandstone with ashlar coping, sloping down to a lower level at the road and ending with a bracket. There are remains of a rubble wall along the road, which includes a set-in Victorian post box marked with "VR".