Railings And Gatepiers, Ach Na Coile Including Boundary Wall, Ancaster Road

This building is a two-story, three-bay ‘Arts & Crafts’ villa, dating back to 1904. It has since been subdivided into two flats (in 2004). The design is well-considered, using high-quality materials with meticulous attention to detail. As is typical of ‘Arts & Crafts’ houses, the exterior’s elements are carefully linked to the surrounding features, creating a cohesive whole, and reflecting the prosperity of Callander as a tourist destination at the turn of the 20th century. Ach Na Coile’s unique design distinguishes it from the more conventional ‘pattern book’ villas found in Callander. It sits on a raised plot, with its windows strategically positioned to maximize views of Callander and the surrounding landscape.

The villa is notable for its colonnaded entrance loggia, with a chamfered southeast corner leading up to an attractive semi-octagonal dormer window featuring a polygonal roof. A large, two-story, four-light canted window is situated in the gabled left bay. The rear elevation is asymmetrical and includes a lean-to addition from 1957, featuring a modern box dormer window, likely added when the house was converted into flats.

The interior retains numerous decorative features, including Art Nouveau motifs on copper finger plates and on two and four-panel timber doors. A restrained inglenook fireplace is found in the former first-floor drawing room, with pilasters rising to a plate shelf, and Lorimer-style plaster reliefs of fruit and foliage on the ceiling. Stylized classical timber chimneypieces are present throughout the house, some with decorative tiles.

The exterior materials consist of ‘pudding stone’ with blonde sandstone dressings. The original outer door is of timber, two-leaf construction, with a timber inner door featuring tall lower panels and stained glass upper panels. The windows are timber sash and case, with plate glass lower sashes and multipaned upper sashes. Timber bargeboards with peg motifs adorn the gables, and the roof is covered in grey slate with terracotta ridge tiles. The chimney stacks are cope-less with cans.

A rubble boundary wall runs along Ancaster Road to the southwest, surmounted by metal railings (which were overgrown by bushes in 2004). Square-plan ashlar gatepiers with pyramidal caps topped by ball finials mark the western access point to the driveway.