Dale Castle

Dale Castle is a country house of c.1910 built in roughcast rubble stone with Tudor style dressings executed in cement. It follows a broad square plan with an added north-west rear wing. The building rises to two storeys and features slightly raised square corner towers that are corbelled and battlemented in cement, with similar but lower battlements between the towers.

The windows throughout are large 4-pane sashes with brattishing across the lower rail of the top sash, cement hoodmoulds and sills. A cement band runs beneath the first floor windows. The west entrance front is partly obscured by a service wing to the left. The front elevation displays three first floor windows positioned above an early 20th-century advanced Tudor-style loggia and projecting porch. The loggia contains two Tudor-arched windows to each side, featuring paired sashes with cusping to the top sashes and cusping in the spandrels. Piers divide the windows, topped with a coped parapet. The porch takes the form of a shallow porte-cochere with Tudor arched entries to north and south, and a big shouldered panel to the front bearing a small armorial plaque. It is topped with battlements and square corner turrets. Heavy panelled double doors with a panelled Tudor-arched head are set within.

The south front features a prominent centre 2-storey bay of c.1910 with 2-pane sashes and a ground floor door with side-lights to the left, above which sits a single 2-pane sash. To the right on the ground floor are two 4-pane sashes, with one 2-pane sash above to the left. The east front to the garden presents a regular range of four 4-pane sash windows. The angle towers display small arched panels at ground floor level and small blank loops at first floor. The north side has a first floor range of three 4-pane sash windows, with large c.1910 3-light mullion and transom windows to the ground floor at centre and right.

The north-west wing is slightly lower than the main house and is battlemented. Its east front shows three first floor 4-pane sashes positioned above a mock loggia of four bays with Tudor arches, battlements and dividing piers with taller crenellated tops. Three bays of the loggia are blank, whilst the second bay contains a Tudor-arched sash. The wall then steps back with a flat-roofed single-storey section in the angle, which has one 4-pane sash in its east wall above. The plain north end contrasts with the south end, which at right angles to the west loggia carries paired hoodmoulded first floor windows.

Internally, the house follows a square plan entered through a passage from a former north entry, with the stair-hall positioned off to the centre west. The library occupies the north-east, with the drawing-room to the south-east, a narrow morning-room to the centre south, the dining-room to the north-west, and service rooms within the north wing. Most interior detail dates to the early 20th century. A heavy timber stair features turned balusters. Doorcases and cornices are mostly executed in late 18th-century style in painted timber, with 6-panel hardwood doors throughout.

The library contains an ashlar fireplace of 1911 by Martyn of Cheltenham, designed in mid-18th-century style with a centre pediment over three panels, one bearing Lloyd-Philipps arms. The doorcases are painted timber in neo-Palladian style, with pulvinated laurel-leaf friezes and cornices. A moulded cornice runs around the room. The drawing-room features an ornate marble fireplace, probably of mid-19th-century date, with paired columns to each side, lion-masks in the frieze above set amongst anthemion and other neo-Grec detail, and a centre carved panel with cherubs. Below sits a fire-basket within an arched marble surround with a mask keystone and ribboned wreaths in the spandrels. The doorcases here are neo-Adam with fluting in the friezes between wreathed crossed spear panels. Walls are articulated by plaster moulded reeded panels with a moulded dado rail, and the cornice is moulded with a ceiling border. The dining-room contains a bolection-moulded fireplace. The hall is finished with a modillion cornice. The morning-room displays neo-18th-century detail throughout. A passage leads through to the west entry and Tudor-arched main doors.