South Entrance Gatepiers And Walls, Auchenheath House

South Entrance Gatepiers and Walls, Auchenheath House

The south entrance comprises a pair of squared stone gatepiers with scroll caps, set between curved quadrant walls and cylindrical corniced piers. Long curved walls extend to either side, featuring spaced piers constructed in Aberdeen bond stonework.

These gatepiers and walls form the entrance approach to Auchenheath House itself, a substantial villa of mixed 19th-century date. The main house began as an earlier 19th-century cottage at the centre of its south elevation, later extensively expanded with asymmetrical additions during the mid 19th century and further modified by architect William Ferguson around 1886, with additional alterations continuing into the early 20th century.

The villa, which occupies a picturesque setting between a former railway embankment and a deep river ravine, is constructed predominantly in stugged coursed ashlar with raised margined surrounds, and bull-faced ashlar to parts of the west elevation. It features an advanced base course, moulded string courses and projecting cills. The building is an extensive 8-bay structure, largely of two storeys but asymmetrically planned, with an open entrance loggia to the east and a 3-storey tower section offset to the west.

The original 3-bay cottage at the south elevation's centre has gabled former ancillary accommodation behind it. Later additions incorporate a 3-storey gabled tower section with bipartite windows and a small square tower crowned with a shallow domed roof and weather vane. A gabled wing at the southwest corner displays a carved stone plaque and floral swags to its apex. The west elevation includes a projecting gabled bay and a later canted bay. A small chapel is attached at an angle to the north, featuring a pilastered and pedimented niche with crucifix to the gable, an entrance porch and decorative parapet wallhead. A 3-storey rendered brick circular tower at the central section of the north elevation has corbelled brick detailing and a domed copper roof. Early 20th-century adaptations modified the east entrance detailing to include an open loggia and porch.

Windows are timber sash and case throughout, predominantly with multiple panes over plain lower sashes. Eaves are mostly timber-bracketed and overhanging, with stone skews to the north gables. The roofs are slate, and cast-iron rainwater goods with decorative hoppers (some dated 1868) complete the exterior.

The interior contains finely decorated principal rooms connected by a long central hall. An early 20th-century timber-panelled entrance hall features a fine mosaic floor. A reception room contains fine stained glass and an ornate marble chimneypiece. The central entrance hall has squared stone pilasters and an ornately plastered, recessed vaulted ceiling with semi-circular stained glass end panels. A timber-panelled dog-leg stair with turned balusters rises to the central upper floor. The library, in rectangular Jacobethan style, features timber panelling and a hammer-beam roof with clerestory, dated 1842 and 1876. A large formal dining room has a curved ceiling, highly decorative cornice, timber chimneypiece with pilastered overmantel and arched hoodmoulds to doors. A curved timber stair with cast-iron banisters serves the tower section.

Associated with the house is a 2-storey, 4-bay gabled former coach house with small square first-floor windows under the eaves. It is constructed in coursed ashlar rubble with an eaves course and projecting cills. Timber multi-pane windows and boarded doors feature throughout, though later alterations have introduced large garage door openings to the south gable. Stone skews, squared skewputts and ball finials ornament the gable apexes, and a tall wallhead stack rises from the roof. The coach house is linked to the former chapel wall by a pair of squared ashlar pillars with large ball finials. A cobbled courtyard area lies to the west.

The grounds include garden terraces and balustrades: central steps with balustrades and ball finials lead down to the south lawn area, and ashlar stone retaining walls with a carved stone balustrade extend to the west side. Tall buttressed railway embankment walls stand to the east of the house.

Additional ancillary structures remain on the site, including the remains of a rectangular ancillary building to the north of the coach house, a complete rectangular rendered brick building with arched details beyond, a small piended-roof brick building, and a small stone outbuilding with an in-filled gable in the far north area of the site. Large garden ground walks to the south of the house are shown on the first edition Ordnance Survey map.