Gatepiers And Wing Walls, The Pass Including Gates

Gatepiers And Wing Walls, The Pass Including Gates

The Pass is a large, roughly L-plan villa designed circa 1905 by Scott Campbell, situated in a secluded position high on the hillside on the north side of the Aberfoyle-Stronachlachar road. It incorporates Arts and Crafts and Baronial detailing and represents a virtually unaltered example of a large Edwardian villa with interesting architectural detail and very well preserved original interior.

The main part of the house is a rectangular block with a narrow south-east entrance front and a long south-west facing principal elevation. The south-west elevation is two-storey, raised over a full basement to accommodate the sloping ground and ensure that the principal rooms have uninterrupted views over the trees to the hills beyond. It comprises four bays, with a slightly advanced gabled bay to the left containing a full height canted bay window; the right bay is a full height crenellated bow which clasps the angle and returns onto the entrance front.

On the left side of the entrance front is the three-bay gable end of the main block, with the castellated bow to the left and a keystoned ocular window at the centre of the apex. The off-centre entrance doorway is sheltered by a timber columned, segmentally-arched porch, which extends to the left to form a flat roofed veranda. The right section of this elevation extends from the side of the gable-end to meet the steeply rising hill to the right, screening the rear of the house. At ground floor level, double doors in a segmentally arched opening would have allowed carriage access to the rear. At first floor level, a long glazed conservatory corridor with a pitched roof is jettied out from the screen wall and widens out to the south-east into a five-sided canted bow built onto the hill, with continuous glazing and rustic timber trunk mullions.

The service wing is a two-storey and attic rectangular-plan block of subservient proportions extending at an angle from the north-west gable of the main block. This north-west gable has half-timbering detail to the upper storeys, as does the gable-headed left bay of the three-bay service block.

The interior has undergone virtually no alteration since construction. All original woodwork remains, including curtain rails and chimneypieces in almost every room. The principal rooms feature substantial chimneypieces with ornate overmantels. Original plasterwork and some original wallcoverings survive, including in the dining room, attic billiard room, and the full decorative scheme in the parlour.

The main door gives access to a hall running the length of the rear of the house, which also contains the stair; the principal rooms lead off the left of the hall. A timber-chimneypiece with overmantel stands to the left. The timber half-turn stair with landings is enclosed by a timber parapet to the lower flight, terminated by a squat timber column extending to the ceiling. The stair is lit by three rectangular windows of diminishing heights, all with swagged designs in coloured and leaded glass. The service wing, accessed from the far end of the hall, retains the majority of original fitted furniture. The first floor drawing room retains the original lighting scheme and gives access to the conservatory. The attic floor has bedrooms with tiled chimneypieces and coloured and leaded glazed doors, and a large comb-ceilinged billiard room with tiled chimneypiece, giving access to a small lookout point on top of the crenellated bow.

The house is constructed of random rubble with tooled sandstone quoins and margins; smooth ashlar is used to the canted bay. There are two-leaf timber-panelled storm doors and timber and glazed inner doors with baluster style astragals. Timber sash and case windows feature two, four or six pane top sashes and single pane bottom sashes to the main house, four or six pane glazing to the service wing and rear, and multi-pane casements to the conservatory. The pitched roof is covered with graded slates; stone skews and skewputts, broad sparred eaves, and plain bargeboards are present. Corniced gable-end and wall-head stacks with circular cans complete the exterior.

At the entrance to the driveway from the road are timber openwork gates flanked by one square-plan gatepier and one circular-plan crenellated gatepier, with short curved rubble wing walls topped with ashlar copes.