Windhouse, Yell

Windhouse is a former laird's house dating to 1707, with significant remodelling circa 1885. The original core of the building was an L-shaped house, around which later additions were made. The main part of the house is a symmetrical three-bay block with a dormered attic and a projecting crenellated porch at the centre. A single-storey two-bay wing extends to the rear, forming the "L" shape. Square, single-storey, crenellated wings flank the main block, and lean-to additions fill in the angles between the wings. The walls are largely harled, with droved sandstone ashlar and concrete dressings and details.

The south (principal) elevation is symmetrical, featuring a single-storey rendered brick porch with a four-panel flush-beaded timber entrance door and an armorial panel above, set within the crenellated wallhead. Bipartite windows are positioned at ground and first floor levels in the outer bays, with the first-floor windows breaking the eaves in substantial dormers topped with crowstepped concrete dormerheads. The wings have margined round-arched doorways and crenellated wallheads.

The west elevation is asymmetrical, with a square window centered in the crenellated west wing. A small, single-storey, mono-pitch outbuilding adjoins this wing to the west. A substantial lean-to addition fills the re-entrant angle between the rear wing and the main block, featuring two closely-spaced windows and a corner wallhead stack.

The north (rear) elevation shows the crowstepped gable of the rear wing projecting to the right of centre. Another lean-to addition fills the re-entrant angle with the west wing to the right, while a small single-storey lean-to addition is situated in the re-entrant angle to the left, with a narrow window in the rear wall of the east wing.

The east elevation has a window offset to the right of the crenellated east wall of the east wing, with the rear wing recessed to the right and another lean-to addition filling the re-entrant angle.

The roof is covered in purple-grey slate, with cast-iron gutters and downpipes. A piend-roofed timber dormer centres the south pitch. Concrete crowstepped skews are present on the principal gables, along with harled gablehead stacks topped with stone copes and octagonal cans.

The interior, largely ruinous as of 1997, retains late 19th-century vertically-boarded timber lining in the hall, including a timber staircase leading to the rear, and a stop-chamfered chimneypiece in the west wall.

Formal terrace walls are centred on the south elevation, forming a roughly square raised terrace accessed by stone and concrete steps (previously flanked by obelisks). These steps lead to the remains of a gatehouse, formerly with a crowstepped gable. A raised path leads to the entrance, and the terrace is bounded to the south by a droved ashlar slab cope (once containing a gothic cast-iron railing). L-shaped walls enclose the east and west ends.

Random rubble garden walls form a roughly square enclosure adjoining the house to the west and enclosing the house to the north and east. A ha-ha, consisting of a random rubble retaining wall curving with the hillside, is located to the south of the house.