Overtoun Hospital

Overtoun Hospital is a large, elaborately detailed Scottish Baronial mansion house built between 1860 and 1863, designed by James Smith of Glasgow. The building is asymmetrical, set on a slope, and has two and three storeys over a basement. A five-storey square tower is located at the north-west corner, with a three-storey stair tower to the west. The exterior is constructed with stugged stonework, polished dressings, and raised quoins. Windows are either square or segmental-headed with shaped hood-moulds, carved label stops, and pedimented dormer heads on the upper floors. There are corbelled angle turrets and crowstepped gables.

The north elevation features the tower with a corbelled and crenellated parapet and a cap house attached to a three-storey entrance range. A large, corbelled and crenellated porte-cochere leads to a projecting porch with a round-arched door. A stair window is positioned to the left, with two two-storey bays beyond, and an angle turret.

The south (garden) elevation is asymmetrically massed and stepped down from west to east. Outer gabled bays are connected by a boldly bracketed balcony at the raised ground floor, incorporating a central staircase to the garden. Canted windows are present in the outer bays, and a turret is corbelled from the second floor at the south-west corner. The conical-roofed stair tower in the re-entrant angle at the south-east corner is also corbelled at the upper level. The building features plate glass windows, mostly sashes. Stacks are coped or have grouped diamond flues, and the roofs are slated, with fish-scale slating over the turrets. A modern steel fire escape is located on the west side.

The interior is elaborately decorated with classical doorpieces, chimneypieces, entablatures, and ornate ceiling plasterwork. A vaulted stair passage, decorated with painted panels, leads from the main door into a Corinthian-columned entrance hall. Principal rooms on the ground and first floors lead off a long lobby. The ground floor lobby has a ribbed ceiling and two shell-hooded niches with entablatures; the drawing room is L-plan, with very rich plasterwork and painted ceiling panels. Both the dining room and library ceilings feature pendant cornices. The cast-iron stair balustrade is ornamented with a lion rampant pattern entwined in thistle decoration.

To the south, a terraced, rectangular garden enclosure is enclosed by a buttressed and bull-faced ashlar retaining wall with a pierced ashlar parapet. Central steps are located on the south wall. Circular bastions are positioned at the south-east and south-west corners.