No 6, Smithy, Buchanan Smithy

Buchanan Smithy Cottages is a small estate village built around 1800 for the Duke of Montrose. It comprises two blocks of four terraced cottages, a former smithy building, and a detached house, all arranged along the north side of the road between Drymen and Milton of Buchanan. Each cottage originally contained two apartments. The settlement is listed as category C because, despite later non-traditional alterations, it has value as an example of an early 19th-century estate-built settlement. It makes a positive contribution to the landscape and retains the sparse character of the Buchanan Estate, also evident at Milton of Buchanan.

Nos 1–4 Buchanan Smithy Cottages

A piend-roofed terrace of four two-storey cottages, each with three bays, central doors, and two openings to the first floor. No 1 has a gabled porch with bargeboarding, shaped slates, and rustic tree trunk columns. The rear (north) elevation features a single-storey lean-to projection running the full length of the terrace, above which are shallow horizontal windows tucked below the eaves (altered to dormer-headed windows at No 2). The cottages are rubble-built; Nos 1 and 2 are painted, while Nos 3 and 4 are harled. There are three mutual rendered ridge stacks and a wall-head stack to the east end. The roof is slate, some graded.

No 1 has modern extensions to the north. Behind No 4 is a communal outbuilding, a rectangular brick structure with a piended roof and four door openings to the south elevation.

The front elevations of Nos 1 (excluding one ground floor window) and 3 (ground floor right only) retain 12-pane timber sash and case windows, with 6-pane to first floor. No 4 has 2-pane timber sash and case windows to the front elevation. The remaining windows are non-traditional timber or plastic.

Inside, No 3 retains two staircases to the upper floor.

No 5 Buchanan Smithy Cottages

Possibly built to house the blacksmith, No 5 was originally a square-plan, piend-roofed, two-storey cottage of two bays with a doorway to the right bay. It is built of random rubble with some red sandstone quoins and margins, and has a graded slate roof. The original windows and doors have been replaced with non-traditional timber units. To the rear (north), a substantial roughcast extension has been added.

No 6 Buchanan Smithy Cottages

No 6 was originally the smithy, a single-storey rectangular-plan building of higher quality materials than the rest of the settlement. While the side elevations are random rubble, the front (south) elevation is squared, tooled, coursed rubble with Aberdeen bond detailing. The pitched, graded slate roof has stone skews with shaped skewputts, and there are two corniced squared rubble gable-head stacks. The three-bay front (south) elevation has a segmentally arched cart opening to the left, with timber-boarded sliding doors, and thick astragalled multipane windows to the centre and right. The smithy was extended to the rear in the late 19th century, and in the later 20th century this part of the building was extended and altered to form living accommodation with the addition of a second storey under a Dutch barn-style roof.

The interior of the original section retains the forge hearth, bellows, and stone flagged floor.

Nos 7–10 Buchanan Smithy Cottages

Nos 7–10, at the west end of the row, form a terrace of four single-storey and attic cottages with catslide dormers breaking the eaves to the front (south) elevation. Each cottage has a front elevation of three bays with a central door and two openings to the upper floor; each has a central rooflight. One mutual ridge stack and two wall-head stacks at the west and east ends have been retained.

To the rear (north) is a nearly full-length single-storey lean-to projection which has been subject to numerous alterations. A box dormer has been added to the rear of Nos 8 and 9. Traditional timber sash and case windows, 12-pane to ground and 9-pane to first floor, have been retained to the front elevation of No 8; the remaining windows in the terrace are non-traditional timber or plastic. No 7 retains timber-boarded storm doors.