Cambus O'May Hotel Including Terraced Garden Walls And Gatepiers

The Cambus O'May Hotel, possibly designed by George Truefitt and dated 1874, is a well-detailed, two-storey, U-plan, asymmetrical hotel originally built as a fishing lodge. It is set within landscaped grounds that include a walled garden, a cottage, kennels to the north, and a stable block to the south. The building features bull-faced, snecked pink and grey granite with Aberdeen bond, along with bull-faced margins and projecting cills.

Notable architectural elements include a piended tower-like porch with squat square-section piers on the east side, and a slated polygonal porch supported by decoratively-braced rustic columns on the south side. Monumental shouldered and battered stacks rise from the wallhead, and some first-floor windows break the eaves into gabled dormerheads. The south gable is crowstepped, and decorative voussoired windowheads appear as relieving arches, with stone mullions and timber transoms.

The garden elevation to the south features asymmetrically-fenestrated outer gabled bays, including a crowstepped bay off-centre right with a rustic porch and a large canted French window at ground level. There is a single window below a semicircular relieving arch with an incised date, flanked by bipartite windows on the first floor. The east and west wings create a small courtyard at the rear.

The windows are fitted with plate glass glazing in timber casement and sash and case styles. The building has coped, shouldered ashlar stacks topped with polygonal cans, and the roof is covered with red slates featuring decorative grey fish-scale bands. The gableheads are finialled, and the south side has scallop bargeboarding.

Inside, there is a good decorative scheme, including reeded timber dado panelling in the lobby with narrow shelves for fishing rods, moulded cornices, timber fire surrounds, and some timber-lined walls. The lounge bar features pine-log cladding and a part-glazed two-leaf screen door.

The terraced garden walls consist of coped squared rubble with steps flanked by ball-finialled dwarf walls to the south and east. The gatepiers are a pair of coped and ball-finialled square-section bull-faced ashlar piers.