Dairy And 1 And 2 Dairy Cottages, Balmoral Castle

William Smith, plan after John Thomas and Beaton, 1862-3, additions 1864. Octagonal, 2-storey dairy linked to single storey and attic U-plan cottages with Tudor details. Stugged coursed granite with polished dressings to cottages, former dairy ashlar; base course; cottage wallhead slightly jettied on corbel course.

Dairy: octagonal, 2-storey core surrounded by substantial, ashlar arcade with Tudor-arched openings, cornice and crenellated parapet; pointed arch windows to taller ground floor milk house with fixed gauze screens, decorative cast-iron grilles below, tiling and benches remain, small windows to tea room above, timber corbels to eaves of octagonal roof crowned with large, octagonal, louvred timber ventilator, billeted cornice and lead ogee roof with decorative finial. Covered link to cottages to SW with Tudor-arched opening to either side and slate roof.

1-2 Dairy Cottages: 2, 3-bay, gabled cottages facing NW and SE each with gabled entrance bays at centre, pointed-arch opening, blind arrowslit in gablehead and fleur-de-lys finial, flanked by windows and forming 3 dwellings. Raised, battered chimneybreasts to centres of return gables, with blind windows, arrowslits or narrow windows flanking at ground and small attic windows flanking above. Small service court open to SW, lean-to to rear of cottages and side elevations lined with stone lean-tos extending beyond cottages to SW with coped screen walls.

4-pane sash and case windows. Graded grey slates; lead flashing. Crowstepped gables with bracketed skewputts. Coped gablehead and ridge stacks. 2 slate-hung box dormer additions to NW cottage, No 1, and modern dormer to court elevation of SE cottage, No 2.