Craig Tower, 1 Wellknowe Road, Thorntonhall

Craig Tower is an Edwardian villa built in 1910 for Roderick Scott, a meat dealer, designed in traditional Scots and late Arts and Crafts style with a unique original interior scheme combining Glasgow-style Art Nouveau with imported Italian craftsmanship, presumably executed by Italian craftsmen.

The building is single-storey with a U-plan arrangement. The entrance front faces west with a long 6-bay elevation, while north and south wings extend at right angles to the rear, enclosing a drawing room at the centre to the east. The exterior displays characteristic Scots detail: white harled walls with red sandstone ashlar dressings, a harled plinth and ashlar base course, and a harled crenellated parapet with ashlar cornice and cope. Corbelled and balustered bartizan turrets occupy the north-west and south-west angles; the square bay at the north-west angle is slightly taller, creating the impression of a tower. Windows are mullioned and transomed with decoratively leaded glazing. The main block and wings have low slated piend roofs, with polygonal cast-iron ridge vents topped with cupolas and finials.

On the entrance west elevation, the taller tower bay to the left features a partial balustraded parapet and angle bartizan with flag-staff. A 5-light transomed projecting canted window sits to the left of the entrance, with another at the right-hand end bay. The entrance is approached by a flight of steps with coped wing walls and original tapered cast-iron lamp stands. The doorpiece is lugged and architraved in ashlar with a clasping keyblock, cornice with ball finials supported on vigorous moulded consoles, and an original bell-push. Two-leaf 3-panelled timber outer doors open to a glazed aesthetic movement inner door with stained glass main panel curved at the lower margin, with panelling below curved at the upper margin to provide a curved door transom. Original cast-iron door furniture and a leaded rectangular fanlight are retained. Two transomed bipartites stand to the right of the entrance. The south-west balustraded bartizan displays elaborate wrought-iron weather-vane.

The north elevation shows the return of the tower with a projecting single-storey crenellated bay at ground level containing a transomed tripartite window. The north wing recesses to the left with three windows—two bipartite and one single—and a pair of wallhead stacks.

On the south elevation, a large 5-light transomed window at the east end of the south wing bay has elaborate heraldic motif leaded glazing with coloured glass in the upper panes and plate glass in the lower, except for one pane with leaded lattice-work. Two single windows occupy the opposite south re-entrant elevation of the north wing; that to the left, next to the drawing room block, has a coloured etched or painted glass upper pane to the right which has been replaced.

The drawing room is a piend-roofed square-plan space enclosed by the north and south wings to the rear, with a 5-light mullioned east window, the upper panes decoratively leaded.

The interior preserves an original decorative scheme of exceptional quality. The main door features clear, coloured and painted glass framing a figurative stained-glass panel depicting a medieval knight in armour, bordered in crown glass, with a fanlight containing coloured glass swags and a central heraldic panel surrounded by clear glass with crown glass border.

The drawing room ceiling is coved with elaborate Florentine-style mosaic. A fine original gilt pendant chandelier at the centre features winged cherubim motifs, a double centre pendant and lights suspended on gilt rings with shades made of long coloured glass beaded fringes. Similar single lights hang in each corner of the main ceiling. A dark mosaic cornice displays a continuous coloured swag motif; the walls have lost their original decoration.

The floor combines patterned mosaic in Italian and Glasgow styles: a floral outer border surrounds a central circle with floral and Glasgow-style stylised motifs and a thistle border. An ingleneuk features dado panelling and fitted seats. The fireplace has a tall timber Glasgow-style Art Nouveau chimney-piece with mannered pilasters rising through the over-mantel to the cornice, a consoled mantel shelf and bevelled over-mantel mirror flanked by sculptured panels. Two tiny fringed lights are suspended in the ingleneuk.

The billiard room retains its original table and centre lights. A simple Art Nouveau timber chimney-piece features original tiled slip and an elaborate vitreous enamelled slow-burning stove.

The bathroom displays Art Nouveau green and white-glazed tiling at half-height with a decorative tree-motif frieze and mosaic floor. Original fittings include a brass towel rack, twin basins in black and white marble setting, a large basin, an oval over-mirror, a cast-iron bath, and original door furniture.

The dining room contains a classical timber chimney-piece with fluted Roman Ionic column stiles with exaggerated entasis and egg-and-dart moulding beneath the cornice.