Swimming Pool, Gribloch House, Kippen

The swimming pool, part of Gribloch House in Kippen, was designed by Basil Spence and Perry Duncan between 1937 and 1939. It was originally part of a larger scheme for a modern, streamlined house incorporating some traditional detailing, built for John Colville of the Steel family. The house was likely the largest private residence built in Scotland during the 1930s, and a model of the house survives at Glasgow School of Art.

The swimming pool is located between two wings on the South front. It features a sea lion fountain from Compton Pottery in Guildford. The house exhibits a curved entrance front with five central bays, a wide bay to the east, and a projecting, bow-shaped west bay. The garden front includes two deep, splayed three-bay wings flanking the pool, and a lower service wing to the east. The structure is two storeys high, with an ashlar base course and dressings, harled walls, and a very shallow-pitched copper roof concealed behind a parapet. A porch is supported by tall, fluted wooden columns and features a door within a moulded architrave, topped with an oculus. A curved bay connects the wings on the garden front, filled with a full-height, five-light stair/hall window. All the windows are metal-framed casements; some are taller on the ground floor and opening onto cantilevered first-floor balconies, while the west bow features closely spaced windows and some porthole windows. A long service range extends eastward.

The interior includes a central, oval stair hall with a bold, cantilevered stair, a finely looped wrought-iron balustrade, and a mahogany handrail. A plaster frieze of shells linked with ropes decorates the hall. The study is finished in a sophisticated Art Deco style with curved ends. The drawing room is in a simple neo-Georgian style, while the dining room has a buffet recess and a coved cornice. Original features remain in first-floor bedrooms, such as mirrored surrounds to the fireplaces, and in the nursery.