Dalkenneth Including Gatepiers, Loch Earn

Dalkenneth Including Gatepiers, Loch Earn

Dalkenneth is an asymmetrical 2-storey, 3-bay house in the English Parsonage style, designed by architect G T Ewing and built in 1883. It occupies a prominent position on the north Loch Earn road, situated roughly equidistant between the villages of Lochearnhead and St Fillans. The house stands as one of the finest local examples of a building style distinguished by contrasting grey sandstone walls with red ashlar dressings. It displays notable carved stonework in the dressings and hoodmoulds, and is particularly distinctive for its tall chimneystacks. It represents an important work by an architect who exerted considerable influence on the area during the later 19th century.

The entrance is positioned on the east elevation, accessed by way of a shallow pointed-arched doorway at the far right of the ground floor. The doorway features a stop-chamfered, roll-moulded architrave and a hoodmould decorated with rose and thistle motifs to the labels. A rectangular hoodmoulded 3-light window sits to the left of the doorway. The left-hand bay of the east elevation is gabled, with a 3-light trefoil-headed window at first floor and a canted 4-light bay window positioned off-centre left at ground floor. This bay window wraps around the corner to meet a tall, advanced chimneystack on the south garden elevation.

At the centre of the south elevation at first floor is a distinctive oriel window that breaks the eaves line. The left bay is gabled, containing 3-light hoodmoulded windows at ground and first floor levels, with a tall gablehead stack.

The west elevation is dominated by a 2-storey bay window, which has 4-light windows at ground and first floor levels, with additional single lights to the returns. A tall wallhead chimney sits in the centre of the elevation.

On the north rear elevation, a 3-light lead-paned stair window with red and yellow stained glass sits off-centre left at first floor. Single-storey service accommodation extends northward.

The interior is accessed directly from the main door into the centre of the house. A wooden winder staircase is lit from the north by the stained-glass stair window. On the south wall of the entry hall, a fireplace remains with timber panelling to the wall above. In the southeast corner, a room enjoys views to the southeast and south through the bay window, with another fireplace retained in situ. The remainder of the south side of the ground floor is occupied by the principal reception room. The west side of the house contains a dining room, which leads into the single-storey kitchen on the north side. Some simple banded cornicing survives in the south reception rooms, but the remainder of the interior has been altered and modernised.

The gatepiers are tall structures of circular plan constructed in random rubble, with rubble cornicing and conical caps. Modern late 20th-century security gates have been attached with steel rings.

Materials throughout comprise squared grey sandstone rubble with red sandstone ashlar to dressings and rusticated red sandstone quoins. Windows are timber sash and case with plate glass. The eaves feature timber bracketing, and the bargeboards are banded timber. Doors are wooden and panelled with timber boarded infill. The roof is covered in red clay tiles. The chimneystack are tall and corniced in grey sandstone with red ashlar quoins and conical capped cans, some of which are late 20th-century replacements.