Alton House, Ailsa Hospital

Alton House is a large villa, designed and built in 1897 by Thomas McGill Cassels as patient accommodation for the former Ayrshire District Asylum (Ailsa Hospital). The hospital is located on a site of around 70 acres and consists of the 1869 main building and various ancillary hospital buildings and former ward blocks from the late 19th century up to the later 20th century. Alton House is set apart from the other buildings on the hospital in a wooded area on high ground to the west.

Alton House is an extensive almost square-plan, gabled, three storey villa with a 4-bay symmetrical principal entrance elevation which faces southeast. There is a glazed canopy on cast iron columns and brackets over the front door. The house is built in ashlar with a deep angled base course and a first floor string course enclosing downpipes. There are paired mullioned windows on the advanced outer bays of the principal elevation and a large canted ground floor windows to each of the side elevations. The gables' apexes have a timber framed detail infilled with render. There are lower two-storey service sections to the rear and a large metal escape stair. There is a former entrance porch (door infilled) on the two-storey section of the south elevation.

There is a multi-pitch slate roof with overhanging timber bracketed eaves. The windows are timber sash and case with a six over two gazing pattern to the main part of the house and four over two pattern to the two-storey section to the rear. The rainwater goods are predominantly cast iron with decorative conical vent caps.

The interior of the building was seen in 2018. While the bedroom accommodation was refurbished for modern use in the early 21st century, a number of fixtures and fittings contemporary with the original date of the building remain, primarily in the public rooms. The main rooms have fielded panelling to dado height, large chimneypieces with fluted columns, picture rails and a dentil cornice. The ground floor corridor has fielded timber panelling with an integral recessed bench. The staircase is enclosed with bespoke timber handrails fixed to the walls and decorative consoled brackets.