Camphill Public House, 1-3 Main Street, Bothwell

Camphill Public House, 1-3 Main Street, Bothwell

A public house dating from circa 1900 with later alterations and additions. The building is two storeys with an attic, presenting a near-symmetrical rectangular plan with three bays at upper floors and five bays at ground level. It is constructed in polished red sandstone ashlar with artificial stone to the dormers (painted to the front and harled to the sides), finished with polished ashlar dressings. The base course is distinguished by a painted fascia reading "Camphill Vaults Lounge Bar" positioned between ground and first floor below a cornice with terminating brackets. An eaves course with weathered dentilled cornice surmounts the façade, also with terminating brackets. Ground floor windows feature aprons, stop mouldings and mullions; first floor windows have moulded margins and mullions; dormers display raised cills and the walls are articulated by strip quoins.

The entrance elevation presents a picture window at ground level within the bay to the right of centre, with a boarded outer door opening into a square-plan encaustic-tiled vestibule. Behind this are etched glazed and timber-panelled vestibule doors. To the right flank, a pair of boarded outer doors leads to a modern part-glazed vestibule. A single, non-aligned window sits at first floor level, surmounted by a scrolled pedimented wallhead stack. A bipartite window at ground floor in the bay to the outer right is complemented by a non-aligned first floor window and a non-aligned dormer window above. An aligned bipartite window occupies each floor, including the attic, within the bay to the outer left.

The rear elevation exhibits irregular fenestration with a harled screen wall spanning almost the entire ground floor, with steps rising to first floor level to the right. The first floor features alternating windows and doors, with three unevenly disposed dormer windows above.

The north and south side elevations present harled blank gable walls with wide gablehead stacks.

Windows throughout are two-pane timber sash and case designs, some with shaped leaded and inscribed lower sections (particularly to the right and the picture window at ground level), though some have been replaced. The roof is covered in grey slate, with modern covering applied to the flat-roofed dormers. The stacks are ashlar-coped and harled, with ashlar-coped skews and blocked skewputts; cast-iron rainwater goods are in place.

The interior is exceptionally rich in decoration, particularly the public bar—the principal room—which features a large, near full-height gantry set to one corner behind a curved bar. The gantry is divided vertically at its lower reaches by Corinthian fluted pilasters and at upper reaches by baluster-based, carved barleysugar columns with foliate capitals. A round-ended cornice with semicircular decorative motifs crowns the composition, with a segmental arch and clock positioned above the corner. The bar itself displays decorative floral panels with moulded margins, divided by fluted Corinthian pilasters, and is finished with a similar decorative cornice to the gantry. A hinged, folding door provides access to the bar entrance. Decorative plasterwork below the dado is complemented by a decorative dado rail; shutters remain extant. A picture rail and floriated cornice embellish the walls, while the ceiling features an egg and leaf plaster border with a further flower-bosséd border within. A pair of early pub mirrors survives, one inscribed "James Summers, Glasgow, Property of W H Chaplain Ltd". Plain ancillary rooms flank the main bar.

The building was constructed as a public house with a domestic flat above. Although the exterior is plain in character, the interior is probably original and of considerable richness. The name Camphill is said to derive from the site of a military encampment prior to the Battle of Bothwell of 1679.