Dairy And 1 And 2 Dairy Cottages, Balmoral Castle

The Dairy and 1 and 2 Dairy Cottages at Balmoral Castle were designed by William Smith, based on plans by John Thomas and Beaton, and built between 1862 and 1863, with additions made in 1864. The complex features an octagonal, two-storey dairy that is connected to single-storey and attic U-plan cottages, all showcasing Tudor architectural details. The cottages are constructed from stugged coursed granite with polished dressings, while the former dairy is built of ashlar stone. The base course is prominent, and the wallhead of the cottages slightly jetties on a corbel course.

The dairy itself has an octagonal, two-storey core surrounded by a substantial ashlar arcade with Tudor-arched openings, a cornice, and a crenellated parapet. The ground floor milk house features pointed arch windows with fixed gauze screens and decorative cast-iron grilles below. Inside, tiling and benches remain, and there are small windows above leading to a tea room. The octagonal roof is supported by timber corbels at the eaves and is topped with a large, octagonal, louvred timber ventilator, a billeted cornice, and a lead ogee roof with a decorative finial. There is a covered link to the cottages to the southwest, featuring Tudor-arched openings on either side and a slate roof.

The two Dairy Cottages are each two and three bays wide, with gabled façades facing northwest and southeast. They have gabled entrance bays at the center, pointed-arch openings, and blind arrowslits in the gable heads topped with fleur-de-lys finials. Each cottage is flanked by windows, creating three distinct dwellings. The cottages feature raised, battered chimney breasts at the centers of the return gables, with blind windows, arrowslits, or narrow windows on the ground floor and small attic windows above. There is a small service court open to the southwest, a lean-to at the rear of the cottages, and stone lean-tos extending beyond the cottages to the southwest, complete with coped screen walls.

The windows throughout are four-pane sash and case style. The roofs are covered with graded grey slates and have lead flashing. The gables are crowstepped with bracketed skewputts, and there are coped gable heads and ridge stacks. The northwest cottage, No. 1, has two slate-hung box dormer additions, while the southeast cottage, No. 2, features a modern dormer on the court elevation.