Corehouse

Corehouse is a two-storey country house with attic storey, designed by Edward Blore and built between 1824 and 1827. The building has an irregular plan and asymmetrical composition, expressing a Tudor Revival style. It rises from a balustraded stone terrace and features an octagonal tower to the south-west. The house is constructed of squared, coursed, bull-faced masonry with ashlar dressings, with a base course and discontinuous eaves cornice. A prominent architectural feature is the number of diagonally-set stacks, which are tall, clustered, corniced and set with clay cans. The roof is covered in grey slates with saddle back skews and kneelered skewputts.

The design employs multiple gables and gabletted dormers throughout, with finials to gables and gablets. Windows are predominantly bi- and tripartite with stone mullions, hoodmoulds with label stops, and gablets breaking the eaves to first floor windows. Gabletted parapets are positioned at canted windows. Windows are fitted with glazing predominantly of three and four panes in timber frames with opening top hoppers.

The principal entrance elevation steps down and back to the right across four blocks. An off-centre gabled porch with Jacobean scroll-work cartouche is flanked by finials and leads to a canted lobby. The north-east elevation features a central canted window at ground floor with a gable positioned between two pairs of stacks. The south-east garden elevation comprises two main blocks with a recessed central section. To the south-west, a service court contains a free-standing tower with pointed roof and gableted finials.

The house is raised on a terrace with a saddleback coped wall, decorative stone balusters and ball-finalled piers. Swept steps lead to the front door.

The interior contains exceptional surviving Tudor Revival features. The main hallway has a compartmented ceiling with ribs, pendants and elaborate cornicing, whilst a decorative oak staircase features a panelled dado. Wainscoting and decorative ceilings survive in many rooms, including the hall, drawing room, chapel, library and dining room. Timber shutters and panelled doors are found throughout.

Corehouse was the first authentic recreation of the Elizabethan Cotswold manor house style and became formative in Blore's subsequent country house practice, influencing numerous commissions. It influenced other architects, notably William Burn, whose work at Teviothead in Roxburghshire and miniaturised features at Snaigow, Perthshire (1826-27) demonstrate Blore's impact. Blore (1787-1879) was one of the foremost country house architects of the mid-19th century, having begun his career as a topographical artist. Around 1811, Sir Walter Scott introduced Blore to him, and although Blore provided sketches for Abbotsford which Scott found appealing for being "less Gothic and more in the old-fashioned Scotch style" than designs by William Atkinson, Scott's main engagement of Blore was as manager of the publication Provincial Antiquities and Picturesque of Scotland, for which Blore provided all drawings from 1819. Scott subsequently introduced Blore to George Cranstoun, later Lord Corehouse. The house is positioned near Corra Castle, set back from the Clyde, with broad swathes of trees sheltering it on three sides. The commission at Corehouse was one of Blore's earliest designs, followed rapidly by Freeland in Perthshire and successive English country houses. By the 1830s Blore had gained reputation as a trustworthy architect whose estimates were reliable, leading to his appointment to complete Buckingham Palace after John Nash's dismissal. Although Howard Colvin regarded Blore as less able than Pugin in transforming thorough knowledge of 15th and 16th century domestic architecture into new designs, Blore's popularity is evident from the 62 country houses Colvin lists as his work.

Corehouse is of major importance to both Scottish and United Kingdom architectural history, and forms an important visual focus within the estate parkland, around which much of the landscape was designed. The Corehouse estate is a main component of the Falls of Clyde Designed Landscape and contributes to the outstanding scenic qualities of this part of the Clyde. A sunken walk was designed in parkland to the south of the mansion house, resembling a ha-ha, allowing visitors to access Corra Castle and Corra Linn without being seen from the main house. Other elements of the designed landscape are also listed, including the Conservatory and Flower Garden Walls, the Dovecot, the Mausoleum, the Stable Court and the Stove House.