Gamekeeper's Cottage, The Glen

Gamekeeper's Cottage, The Glen

This picturesque-style cottage was built in 1888 for Sir Charles Tennant, executed by estate joiners and masons. It is a one-and-a-half-storey, three-bay rectangular-plan building of coursed and squared whinstone with sandstone ashlar dressings featuring chamfered arrises to most surfaces. An attached single-storey pantry and store projects to the rear. The cottage is distinguished by an advanced gabled porch with moulded shouldered doorway and a canted moulded bay that rises into a squared upper storey with chamfered base angles. A separate single-storey, nine-bay kennel block stands nearby, built in a hybrid classical and picturesque style with similar materials: coursed whinstone with vermiculated sandstone ashlar quoins.

The principal south-east elevation of the cottage is approached by two flights of eight stone steps with low ashlar wing walls. The advanced stone entrance porch features a two-leaf timber boarded door with ornate wrought-iron scrolled hinges and matching door furniture, with an inset moulded date stone reading 1888 in the gablehead. The porch has arched barge boarding with a king-post finial terminating in a spike. To the right of the entrance stands a tripartite window with painted mullions and sloped sills, beneath overhanging eaves with exposed timber rafters. A set-back tripartite dormer with matching barge boarding projects from this elevation. To the left of the entrance, a gabled end contains a full-height projecting bay: the ground floor has a canted bay window with single lights to the side cants and a tripartite window to the centre, with a moulded string course leading up to a squared upper level featuring chamfered base angles and a tripartite centre window.

The south-west elevation presents a single-storey wallhead to the right with a very small window, and to the left, a two-storey gable with windows to each floor.

The north-west elevation shows, to the right, a gabled end with a very low wallhead to the left, containing a timber boarded entrance door to the ground floor and a tripartite window with painted stone mullions to the right, with a small window to the gablehead. A very low wallhead with a narrow window breaking the eaves forms a catslide dormer to the centre, above which sits a bipartite catslide dormer with exposed timber rafters. An ancillary building projects from the ground floor left of this elevation.

The north-east elevation has the main house to the left, featuring an advanced stepped stack with ashlar quoins to the centre and a small window to the ground floor right, beneath overhanging eaves with exposed purlins and decorative arched timber bargeboards with turned finials. To the right, the adjoined single-storey ancillary building has timber boarded doors to the left and centre, with a gabled end to the right approached by three stone steps leading to a boarded timber door. The eaves here overhang with exposed rafters and plain bargeboards to the gable end. A later timber garage obscures the right return.

The kennel block's principal south-east elevation is a single-storey, nine-bay range divided into four separate dog runs to the front. The coursed whinstone rubble front wall features vermiculated dressings to the entrances and chamfered coping to the walls (with dividing walls of ashlar). Very high plain wrought-iron railings with matching gates surround all runs, and stone flagged dog yards front each kennel. The first three kennels have window and door fenestration, while the fourth kennel is a three-bay unit with a central door and flanking windows, surmounted by a gablehead with a central oculus. Overhanging eaves with exposed timber rafters run the length of the range. Gabled ends to the south-west and north-east feature ashlar stacks to the north-east gablehead.

The windows throughout the cottage are mostly plate-glass glazing in timber sash and case frames. Smaller attic windows have four-pane glazing in timber sash and case frames, with plate glass to the rear attic dormer. The kennel block has three-pane glazing in timber sash and case windows, with two-pane upper sashes and plate glass lower sashes. Both buildings are roofed in pitched slate with lead ridging and flashing to the cottage. Pitched slated dormers project from the cottage roof, including one catslide dormer to the rear. The kennel block has pitched ventilation dormers to the front with slated roofs and glazed infills, and a later single-pane Velux roof light to the far right of the south-east elevation. Painted cast-iron rainwater goods with decorative hoppers serve the cottage; the kennels rely on overhanging eaves instead. The cottage has coursed ashlar gablehead stacks with moulded neck copes and tall yellow cans with ornate necks, while the kennel block has a short coursed ashlar stack to the north-east gable with a single can.

The cottage interior retains its original room plan, fireplaces, original timber work including doors and skirting boards, and staircase, and remains in use as residential accommodation. The kennels retain their original stone interiors, runs, yards and railings.