Including Gatepiers And Boundary Walls, Craigard, Carrick Castle

Craigard is a multi-phase villa overlooking Carrick Castle, standing on a small hill within a large plot of mature planting. The building combines later 19th century origins with significant early 20th century additions, presenting an interesting and unusual mix of Scots Baronial, castellated, and Arts and Crafts detailing. It is listed as a group value with its gatepiers and boundary walls.

The original section was built as a roughly square-plan 1½-storey villa with a battlemented and machicolated 3-stage square-plan tower set diagonally at the north-east corner to command views over the loch. The south-east facing entrance front has three bays with a central door approached by offset steps, leading to a large hall designed as a reception room rather than mere circulation space. Most first floor windows are dormer-headed, breaking the eaves with crow-steps and ball finials. Window margins are chamfered, and the openings on the south-east and north-east elevations feature shaped heads—mostly very shallow pointed arches, with semi-hexagonal forms to the dormer-headed windows. The ashlar quoins and window margins are raised.

The major early 20th century addition forms a tall 3-storey wing extending from the entrance front, topped by a conical-roofed round stair tower marking the junction between the two phases. While largely maintaining the Scots Baronial character of the original, this addition shows Arts and Crafts influence through leaded timber casement windows. The wing contains a single room per floor, with the top floor apparently designed as a chapel.

Behind the original house on the north-west elevation, a small narrow wing previously served as the kitchen and service area, probably originally single-storey. Between 1900 and the 1920s it was extended across the south-west gable and given a first floor in the form of a dormered mansard-like platform roof. Ground floor alterations extended service accommodation; first floor access was separate, created by breaking through the original wall at the half-landing of the main staircase, indicating this additional accommodation was for the owners rather than servants. Later 20th century alterations added a flat-roofed glazed section to this area.

The sequence of additions and alterations is unclear. However, since the stair tower of the large addition serves only that section with no internal interconnection to the original villa, the service wing extension must have been completed earlier. Their stylistic differences suggest they were not added simultaneously.

The oldest part retains good plasterwork, several fine timber and marble chimneypieces, and a large half-turn timber stair with turned balusters and newels. The three-storey extension contains a timber spiral stair; all three rooms feature timber-beamed ceilings of varying designs. The ground floor has a timber chimneypiece and built-in timber shelving. The chapel retains a stained glass window of potentially significant age depicting Saint Paul, set against exposed masonry walls.

Construction comprises random rubble with some painted sections and ashlar dressings. Roofs are pitched with graded slate and crowstepped gables. The majority of original 2-pane timber sash and case windows survive, though a few have been replaced with modern timber and metal windows. The stair tower has cruciform windows. Rhones are mostly plastic, though downpipes and hoppers are predominantly cast iron, including an ornate gargoyle-embellished hopper to the entrance elevation.

The boundary features include a pair of square-plan gatepiers with castellated caps at the foot of the drive, and rubble walls forming the north-east boundary.