Boundary Walls And Gatepiers, Invereck (Church Of Scotland Eventide Home) Including Outbuildings

Invereck is a small Baronial country house of the late 19th century designed by James Thomson, situated at the mouth of Glen Massan. It exemplifies Thomson's later Baronial style, distinguished by prominent architectural features including a large tower and interior spaces of exceptional quality.

The main house is constructed of squared rubble with ashlar dressings, standing two to three storeys high. It comprises a four-bay front block featuring an off-centred battlemented porte-cochère with a crow-stepped gable above. To the northeast rises a prominent three-stage square-plan tower with a two-storey canted bay and four bartizan turrets. A long crow-stepped extension was added to the southwest around 1950, executed in harled block and brick with crowsteps and raised long and short quoins respectful of the Baronial style of the main house.

The date of the present house is uncertain, though it is thought to have been constructed around 1876. The most reliable date is '1886', inscribed on the main tower. The house occupies the site of an earlier cottage, described by the Ordnance Survey in the mid-19th century as 'small but handsome', which stood in roughly the same location. The cottage and grounds were sold in 1872 to George Miller. A large conservatory shown on the Ordnance Survey map of circa 1898 in the southwest corner has since been demolished. A large fire escape was added to the rear during 20th-century alterations, when the house was converted to form a home for the elderly.

The four-bay front block features a prominent advanced crow-stepped gable and porte-cochère with round-arched openings. Dormers on the upper floor carry unusual scrolled pediments. The main dining room on the ground floor faces southeast and is lit by mullioned and transomed windows. The northeast elevation features a large canted bay on the ground floor of the front block. Adjacent is a small two-storey link block with a northwest-facing verandah opening from a second reception room, above which is a balustraded balcony. The three-stage tower at the north corner displays a prominent canted two-storey bay. To the rear, an enormous stair window has its own gabled bay, with low four-storey service accommodation to the west.

Roofs are of grey slate with tall corniced stone stacks and clay cans. Windows are predominantly plate glass timber sash and case.

The interior contains numerous features of quality despite later additions and subdivisions. The entrance, through timber double doors within a timber entrance screen of fluted pilasters and pedimented side-lights, opens into the entrance hall with a geometrically-panelled plaster ceiling and marble columns with gilded capitals. The main reception room to the right features a timber dado and decorative marble fireplace. A second room contains oak panelling and an elaborately-carved timber fireplace. A butler's pantry in intact condition survives further to the rear.

The main stair is imperial-plan with heavy turned balusters and gilt newel lamps, lit by a large stained glass window featuring a pedimented Minerva above figures of Music, Industry and Painting, thought to have been exhibited at the Paris Exhibition of 1889. The upstairs landing, originally a large open space but now divided by fire doors, is lit by a painted glass dome. Original joinery and plasterwork remains throughout the house.

The older house at Invereck appears to have stood within formal grounds, probably influenced by William Jackson Hooker, the well-known botanist and keeper at Kew Gardens who owned the house for a period. These formal gardens have not survived the rebuilding. Ruinous buildings to the northwest of the house at the site of the former formal gardens remain. More substantial piend-roofed L-shaped outbuildings dating to the later 19th century stand on the Glenmassan road. An L-shaped piend-roofed lodge is in separate ownership. To the south, a series of sheltered homes were built in the mid-20th century.

The house is surrounded by a rubble boundary wall with square-plan gatepiers.