Ardvulan, Main Street, Gartmore

Ardvulan is a traditional 2-storey, 3-bay former inn built in 1780, with an adjoining 2-storey single-bay former stableblock. It sits slightly set back from Main Street in Gartmore, a planned estate village laid out by the Grahams of Gartmore House during the 18th century. The land was feued by Robert Graham to Thomas McGilchrist, a flax dresser from Drymen, who built the house. Unlike most properties in Gartmore, Ardvulan was originally conceived as a 2-storey house and retains an 18th-century circular wheel stair (shared only with the listed Murray House). Although its slate roof has been lost, it remains one of the best surviving examples of a relatively unaltered house in the planned village. As a former inn, it holds prominent social and historical significance for Gartmore and contributes substantially to the streetscape.

The principal south-east elevation features a central 20th-century porch supported by timber columns, flanked by bipartite windows on the ground floor with three single windows above. The former stableblock adjoins to the right, presenting a large 2-leaf door to the pend on the ground floor and a single window above. The stableblock is attached to Blythswood to the north-east. To the south-west, a narrow alley separates the blank side elevation of Ardvulan from Hazel Cottage.

The rear north-west elevation comprises four bays, with the former stableblock advanced to the left and various openings in the rear wall of the house, including 20th-century French windows. The stableblock originally contained stabling on the ground floor with an ostler's room and hayloft above. It was converted to domestic accommodation in the 1980s, and the ground floor now serves as a garage and storerooms, while a large living room occupies the entire first floor with a large Venetian window to the rear.

The house underwent major refurbishment in the 1960s when the slate roof was replaced with concrete tiles, ground floor window openings on the street elevation were enlarged, and the 20th-century porch was added.

The interior originally comprised two rooms on each side of the central staircase. The left front room served variously as kitchen and shop, while the right room originally functioned as the public bar. The timber circular wheel staircase is set within a circular stone well and features shallow timber treads and a mahogany handrail. Modern mahogany-panelled interior doors are copies of the originals. Plain cornicing decorates the principal rooms, with some tongue-and-groove panelled wall divisions. Timber working shutters remain at the first-floor windows.

The building is whitewashed with raised margins. The front door is timber-panelled, as is the large 2-leaf door to the pend. Windows are predominantly 4-pane timber sash and case. The pitched roof to the house features piended roofs to the stableblock and porch, covered in concrete roof tiles; graded grey slate covers the former stableblock to the rear. A coped ashlar gable-head stack sits at the south-west gable, a coped ashlar ridge stack at the north-east end of the house, and a rendered gable-head stack at the stableblock. Bargeboards ornament the south-west gable.