Earlsgate House, St Ninians Road, Stirling

Earlsgate House, St Ninians Road, Stirling

Earlsgate House is a substantial villa designed by the architects McLuckie and Walker in 1900. Built as a residential property, it was converted to offices in 2003. The building represents an accomplished example of restrained classical architecture from the turn of the 20th century, distinguished by its reserved exterior treatment contrasting with richly elaborate interior decoration surviving in several principal rooms.

The main building is a near-symmetrical, four-bay square-plan structure of two storeys with a raised basement and attic storey. It is flanked by matching single-storey service wings with raised basements, set back from the principal block. The principal western elevation is finished in coursed ashlar with long and short stugged quoins, while other elevations employ stugged and snecked sandstone. A piended grey slate roof with overhanging bracketed eaves covers the main block. The roofline features heavily corniced and shouldered wallhead stacks with decorative square cans breaking the eaves of the side elevations. A distinctive eyebrow dormer rises from the principal western elevation, and a glass and iron cupola crowns the central roof platform. The service wings are rendered in snecked and snecked sandstone with pitched grey slate roofs, corniced stacks, ashlar coped skews, and bracketed skewputts to the gables.

The principal western elevation displays the most elaborate architectural treatment. At ground level, a battered base course rises to the cill level, supporting a distinguished doorpiece comprising paired round-arched openings flanked by horizontally-banded pilasters. This doorpiece is surmounted by a cornice with a curvilinear engaged parapet centred by a pedimented tablet. The left opening has a timber-panelled door with a round-arched plate glass fanlight, accessed by stone steps flanked by wing walls terminated by squat piers. The right opening is marked by a stone apron below a coloured glass window. All principal windows are fitted with mullion and transom glazing. The first floor features prominent transomed windows with pronounced corniced transoms, flanked by canted windows below stylised eaves pediments. These pediments are executed as curvilinear swan-necked designs, centring rectangular parapets that break the eaves. The windows themselves are predominantly timber sash and case with plate glass to upper panes, while those to the service wings retain multi-paned upper sashes. Symmetrically disposed service entrances are located in lean-to porches at the re-entrant angles formed by the service wings. These porches feature battered base courses with cill and eaves courses, and pairs of tripartite mullioned windows regularly spaced at ground-floor level.

The rear eastern elevation is near-symmetrical in composition. Stop-chamfered basement windows light the lower storey. At the centre of this elevation stands an advanced, parapetted stair tower that breaks through the eaves and encloses a viewing platform accessed by a replacement two-leaf door providing access from the large central attic billiard room. A narrow off-centre ground-floor door and a tall bipartite stair window at first-floor level pierce this tower. The outer bays display near-regular fenestration at ground and first floors; windows to the upper bay on the right are smaller and positioned higher than those on the left, reflecting the internal arrangement with a bathroom occupying the corresponding space. A small window immediately to the left of the stair tower has been blocked. The flanking service wings show matching fenestration, with former doors to the outer bays, the steps to which were removed in 2003.

The north and south side elevations are near-matching in their treatment, featuring tall transomed windows to both ground and first floors. A round-arched niche set within the south-east stack corresponds with a round-arched stair window positioned within the north-east wallhead stack. The service wings display two small windows set to their outer edges.

The interior has been extensively modernised, particularly in the basement which now contains a series of rooms running beneath the entire house and service wings. However, significant original decorative features survive, especially in the principal ground-floor rooms. The main entrance at ground level opens into a small vestibule with timber panelling to door height and a multi-paned door leading to a larger timber-panelled vestibule, which is divided into two by a timber and coloured glass partition serving the former cloakroom to the south-west. From this vestibule, double openings lead into a large square-plan hallway characterised by exposed timberwork throughout. The hallway features panelled timber doors, a highly ornate decorated frieze and cornice, and geometric panelling to the ceiling. A giant segmental-arched opening to the east, supported on decorated console brackets, frames a wide lower flight of a timber imperial staircase. The staircase displays decorative carved balusters and newel posts at ground and first-floor levels. The large landing newel posts are crowned with swan-necked pedimented caps embellished with swags and acorn finials. At ground level, flanking timber and coloured glass doors leading to the basement and rear exit are set back from the stair.

The two main principal rooms have been little altered from their original state. The remaining ground and first-floor rooms retain some original features including cornices, timber-panelled doors, but have been modernised to varying degrees, with some featuring suspended ceilings. The former dining room to the north-west preserves all its original timberwork, including a timber dado-panelling and timber-panelled doors fitted with ornate doorplates. A large carved timber mantlepiece dominates one wall, now fitted with a modern tiled hearth and grate. The windows feature an unusual treatment of mirrored rectangular panels to the upper section of the lower sashes, designed to mask the window transoms. The room is enriched by an ornate plaster frieze featuring decorative repeating panels of putti masks surrounded by garlands, flanked by detailed Corinthian pilasters. An elaborate cornice with modillions and paterae crowns the frieze, and the ceiling displays geometric plaster decoration with panels and drop-pendants.

The former drawing room retains painted timberwork and mirrored window panels similar to those in the dining room. A press is set close to a canted window on the south side, and a replacement timber door with an upper glazed coloured glass panel provides access. This room features a highly elaborate frieze with a repeating pattern of stylised classical male figures surrounded by garlands, framed by stylised herms surmounted by lyres. The ceiling is decorated in an elaborate manner. A small staircase at first-floor level ascends to the former billiard room located in the attic, a large square-plan space lit by the central glass cupola.

The boundary walls reflect the character of the main house. The principal street elevation is bounded by a low snecked sandstone wall with a moulded ashlar cope featuring a raised central ridge. Flanking gableted piers terminate the outer edges, with an enlarged entrance to the left and possibly an entrance to the right. However, the right wall shows little evidence of a tooled rounded opening, though the third edition Ordnance Survey map indicates a U-plan drive with paired entrances to both right and left. Random rubble walls with coping stones enclose the drive and front garden to the north and east. Tooled snecked linking walls with large openings connect the service wings to the garden walls, and are fitted with cast iron gates. The rear gardens to the north and south are bounded by head-height random rubble walls with rounded copes.

A stable block to the east, latterly converted, forms a boundary wall to Livilands Lane and is not included in this listing.