House, Mill Of Sterin

The Mill of Sterin comprises a farmhouse and steading, both likely dating to 1862. The farmhouse is a single-storey and attic gabled structure situated near the north of the steading. It is built with squared and coursed, stugged, variegated granite, with ashlar dressings. The main features of the east-facing elevation include a stone, gabled porch centrally located, featuring stop-chamfered arrises, a shouldered doorway with a partially glazed door, and narrow windows on its returns. The porch has a kingpost and decorative barge boards. There are three small gabled dormers above the bays, the outer dormers being larger with swept eaves. The north elevation has a projecting window at ground level with a piended roof, and an attic window above. A raised chimneybreast and a small window are present on the south elevation, with the window flanking to the left. The rear elevation has an advanced gable to the left, with two windows at ground level and an attic window above, and a lean-to stone porch in the re-entrant angle to the right, with a door and small window on the return. The farmhouse has 4-pane glazing in sash and case windows, with smaller panes in the lesser windows. Coped end stacks are present, as are decorative barge boards on all gables except the dormers. Grey slates cover the roof.

The steading, situated to the south, is a probable 1862 construction, built in an L-plan, single-storey layout with a loft. It’s constructed of coursed variegated granite with polished dressings. The east-west range has a gable end to the east, featuring a depressed cart-arch with a two-leaf boarded door, and a hayloft opening above. The courtyard elevation exhibits a narrow, fixed-pane window and two doors near the re-entrant angle, with a slate-hung gabled hayloft dormer above. The south elevation is symmetrical, with an advanced gabled bay at centre, a blind window, a serrated course at skewputt level, and a blind arrowslit. It also has a roll finial and blind arrowslits flanking blind windows. The west gable end has a blind window at ground level and to the gablehead. The north-south range has a narrow window and door flanked by blind arrowslits to the west (rear), and a door to the left of the courtyard elevation. The north gable end is abutted by a timber outbuilding, obscuring the hayloft opening in the gablehead. Grey slates cover the roof, with stone ridge details and ashlar coped skews, scroll-bracketed skewputts and cast-iron rooflights.

The buildings represent a well-detailed cottage in the Tudor idiom, characterized by distinctive barge boards, and a compact, L-plan, Tudor-detailed steading. Estimated costs for the steading (£245) and the cottage (£339) were provided by Beaton in May 1862, who may have been the architect. The original name for Birkhall was Sterin, or 'Stairean', meaning stepping stones across the River Muick, a name revived for this location.