Annexe, Darroch Leard Hotel, Braemar Road, Ballater

The Annexe of the Darroch Leard Hotel, located on Braemar Road in Ballater, is a 2-storey Scots Baronial house built in 1890. It features an irregular plan with multi crow-stepped gables and a three-stage crenellated entrance tower at the southern re-entrant angle, along with a turret with a conical roof on the west side. The building is situated on a steep site within its own grounds, positioned along the main entrance road to Ballater from the west. Constructed from pink coursed granite with grey granite dressings, it includes a base course and string course, rounded arrow slits at the gable apex and the top of the entrance tower, and a crenellated terrace with a circular bastion feature adorned with decorative ironwork.

The building has asymmetrical elevations, with the entrance elevation facing south featuring an angled entrance tower that holds a six-panel timber door. To the left of the entrance, there is a stair tower with a long stair window, and to the far left, an advanced two-storey gabled bay with tripartite windows. On the west elevation, a two-leaf timber door with ornamental hinges is set in a shallow segmental arch to the right, above which is a corbelled bipartite window.

The windows are predominantly plate glass timber sash and case types, including some bipartite and tripartite configurations with timber mullions. There are also narrow timber fixed light plate glass windows in the tower. The roof is covered with grey slates, featuring gable stacks, some of which have decorated square cans.

Inside, the original floor plan remains largely intact, showcasing a good Victorian decorative scheme with many original features. This includes fine cornice plasterwork in the public rooms and a circular pierced screen leading to the staircase. The stair window has painted glass margins, and the circular entrance porch features a decorative encaustic tiled floor and niches. Additionally, there is a small lead-lined sink under the back window in the first-storey back corridor.

The boundary wall surrounding the property is made of granite rubble with saddleback coping, being low to the south and interspersed with taller coped sections. There is a pair of square gate piers topped with pyramidal coping.