Ard Choille Including Boundary Walls And Gatepiers

Ard Choille is a fine, well-detailed villa dating from 1876, designed by the architect G T Ewing of Crieff. The villa stands on a large plot on the lochside road, oriented towards Loch Earn. It represents a particularly well-preserved and unusual example of Ewing's work, who served as architect to the Drummond Estate and designed many buildings of this period in St Fillans. The villa ranks among the grandest and most distinctive in the village, and exemplifies the significant influence Ewing exerted on the built heritage of the Trossachs.

The building is complex in plan, with a square ground floor and an L-plan first floor on the southwest (principal) and northwest sides. A later flat-roofed timber extension has been added to the first floor, running parallel to the southwest elevation, while an L-plan glass conservatory sits at ground floor on the southeast elevation. The principal elevation presents a carefully composed façade of three bays. It is dominated by an advanced gabled bay to the left, featuring a two-storey decorative window, with a central entrance porch in the right return of the advanced bay beneath a sloping roof. The right-hand bay contains a segmental-arched pedimented window at ground floor.

The architect employs horizontal and vertical elements to create a formal composition. A projecting splayed base course and cill course at first floor exaggerate the ground floor boundaries. The entry porch and flanking windows rise the full height of the ground floor, giving this level a commanding presence while making the first floor appear narrower, defined by the cill course below and deep projecting bracketed eaves above. Where these eaves are interrupted by the left-hand gabled bay, a frieze with decorative bosses maintains visual continuity across the gable. The frieze is broken by the continuation of the double-height window, which extends into the gablehead and is topped by a small segmental-headed pediment. Below this sits a large plaque bearing the initials 'AS'. The principal ground floor windows are round-arched, those on the advanced gable featuring a raised arcaded margin with raised keystone detailing.

The southeast elevation lacks the formal definition of the principal front, instead displaying a random distribution of fenestration. The projecting cill course continues onto the southwest (side) elevation but serves as the cill to only one upper-floor window. The west corner adopts an unusual form, with gables on both the northwest and southwest sides. The northwest (rear) and northeast elevations contrast starkly with the formal principal elevation. The single-storey ground floor is topped by a mid-twentieth-century timber-boarded extension in the return of the L-plan first floor. A gabled bay stands to the far left, followed by a two-storey bay to the right with deep projecting eaves. At ground floor on the right-hand side sits a timber-built L-plan conservatory with an arcade of round-arched windows and dentil cornice, likely dating to the early twentieth century.

The interior was not accessed during the 2005 survey.

Materials consist of ashlar to the southeast elevation, squared rubble to the sides and rear, and long and short ashlar quoins. The roof is of grey slate with stone stacks and clay cans. Windows are plate glass timber sash and case and timber casement.

Associated with the villa is a large L-plan piended-roof single-storey outhouse in the north corner of the gardens, visible on the second Ordnance Survey map and converted to a small dwelling in the late twentieth century. The site features low ashlar boundary walls and square-plan gatepiers with pyramidal copes.