Brae Of Auchendrane

Brae Of Auchendrane

This is a 2-storey, 3-bay house dating from the later 18th century, probably incorporating earlier fabric. It stands to the south-east of a single-storey service court. A 2-storey service addition was added to the north around 1825, and a single-storey gabled music room with Tudor detailing was constructed to the east in 1916, incorporating earlier fabric already on the site. The building is constructed of stugged pink sandstone rubble with ashlar dressings.

The east elevation displays the three original bays with a centrally-positioned door set within a roll-moulded surround, approached by three stone steps. Above the door is a wall-mounted sundial and armorial measuring 2 feet square, dating from around 1740 and imported from Millheugh. The sundial features a square dial with a gnomon for hours above a cup dial with a gnomon for minutes, flanked by Biblical male and female figures beneath gadrooned canopies with bunch-of-grape pendants to the plinths. A window is positioned above the door and in each flanking bay. To the outer right, an advanced single-storey music room adjoins the later 2-storey addition. The music room has a round-arched recess to its gable end containing a stone-mullioned bipartite window. A tripartite mullioned window appears on the return to the left with a secondary door set by a re-entrant angle, also with a roll-moulded surround. An owl statue marks the quoin of the later 2-storey block, seated on a quoin stone that breaks the eaves line.

The west elevation features a tall stair window at its centre, with a small under-stair window and flanking bay windows. The north elevation shows the 2-storey gable of the service addition facing the court, with bipartite windows to the right and single windows randomly placed to the left. The south elevation has a lean-to modern conservatory adjoined at ground level, with a single first-floor window to the right above.

Windows throughout are small-pane timber sash and case, with leaded casements to the music room. The roof is covered in purple slates with gablehead stone stacks featuring coping, and ashlar-coped skews with block skewputts.

Internally, the staircase is constructed of stone. The hallway contains oak panelling. The music room has a combed ceiling, stone flags, a bolection-moulded chimneypiece (imported from elsewhere), and a depressed arched doorway with glazed upper panels dating from 1916. The dining room features a stone chimneypiece from 1916 decorated with a nursery rhyme frieze depicting "Hey diddle, diddle", the initials of the Thomson brothers, and the Ayr coat-of-arms.

The service court to the north and west is connected to the house by a single-storey range running east-west, largely dating from 1916, with a door to the garden at the rear of the house on the south elevation. Above this door is a shaped dormerhead with small flanking windows and further standard-sized windows beside it. An archway opening to the east (post-1909) abuts the music room and comprises a segmental carriage arch with a stepped wallhead above and a high-relief ram's head plaque. The west range, a 1916 reworking of existing fabric with Tudor details, contains six bays facing the court with paired segmental arched carport openings positioned to the right and left of centre, and three bipartite windows to the left of centre and outer right. The north range reduces to a lower single-storey height to the east and is abutted by a short east range (post-1909) that closes the court and contains a workshop. Small-pane glazing appears throughout in sash and case and casement windows. Purple slates and rooflights cover the service court ranges.

A stugged rubble terrace wall borders the garden by the entrance front, with stone steps providing access. A pair of rubble drum piers flank the vehicular gate, topped with conical caps and associated with sturdy wrought-iron 2-leaf and pedestrian gates.