Athassel House

Detached L-plan five-bay two-storey country house, built c.1810, having four-bay south end elevation, central projecting three-bay porch to front, and lean-to full-height and lower hipped extensions to rear. Hipped artificial slate roof with rendered chimneystacks. Painted lined-and-ruled rendered walls with rendered quoins, string course and plinth course. Square-headed openings throughout with replacement uPVC windows, having render detail to heads of ground floor front windows, all with limestone sills. Porch has Doric-style pilasters between windows, dentillated frieze to entablature with parapet. Square-headed door opening with glazed timber double doors. Recent multiple-bay single-storey stable-yard to north having pitched slate roofs and painted roughcast rendered walls and having segmental-headed integral carriage arch with cut limestone voussoirs. Detached three-bay single-storey gate lodge with hipped slate roof having overhanging sheeted eaves and cut limestone chimneystack and roughcast rendered walls with rendered plinth course. Square-headed openings with render surrounds, having replacement timber windows and door. Cut limestone piers with carved caps and cast-iron gates and railings on rendered walls with limestone coping.

Architectural quality and sophistication are apparent in the design and detailing of this country house. The house is enhanced by the rendered string course which delineates the storeys and the diminishing windows add emphasis to the vertical thrust of the building. The ornate porch provides the house with a decorative central focus. The diminutive gate lodge is given an air of grandeur by the hipped roof with overhanging eaves which retains its limestone chimneystack. The gate lodge, together with the main house, outbuildings, and gates form an interesting architectural group of nineteenth-century structures.