Kirkton Cottage Including Boundary Walls, Aberfoyle

Loch Lomond And Trossachs National Park Planning Authority

Kirkton Cottage is a single storey, rectangular-plan cottage, located directly opposite Aberfoyle Old Kirk. It was built as the parochial school around c1757 at a cost of £32-12-0 Scots pounds (Joynson, 123), but was remodelled and extended to the N twice in the later 19th century. It ceased to be used as a school when the new school was built to the west of the village in 1870. Kirkton Cottage has an interior with an excellent example of a box bed, was the original parish school, and is one of only 3 structures remaining from the 18th century Kirkton of Aberfoyle (the other two being the Old Kirk, listed separately, and the much altered former manse).

The earliest part of the building is the 3-bay S section; this has a central door flanked by two windows (probably enlarged and re-glazed in the 19th century) which light the two rooms within. Map evidence (1st edition OS map 1858-63) and information from the current owner indicates that there may have been another entrance at the S gable - the map shows a small outshot likely to have been a porch.

In the later 19th century, possibly before 1870, the school was extended by the addition of an extra room to the N gable; this was entered by a projecting gabled porch on the E elevation, with a door to the S side and a window to the E. An attic room was also formed, lit by a window in a gable to the right of the porch.

In the late 19th century, after the school had become a dwelling, a further one room extension was added, again to the N gable, lit by a mullioned double window on the front elevation. A small piend-roofed addition was then made to the rear (W) of this room in the later 20th century.

Interior:

The two rooms in the oldest, S section of the house have high ceilings, and the S room retains a classical timber chimneypiece and a tall corner cabinet originally used to store school equipment. The central, later 19th century section has some stone flagged floors and a simple timber stair leading to the attic room; the ground floor has timber tongue and groove panelling to the walls, and in the alcove under the stair, an excellent example of a 19th century timber box bed with curtain rail above.

Materials:

Mostly limewashed random rubble; harled to N end. 4-pane timber sash and case windows. Timber-boarded doors. Pitched, graded slate roof. Gable-head stack to S, 2 ridge stacks, rendered with circular cans.

Boundary walls:

Random rubble walling enclosing the house and an adjacent garden area to the SW.