Description

Built circa 1820 with alterations of circa 1875. 2-storey, 3-bay near-symmetrical house of rectangular plan with stair tower and flanking additions projecting at rear. Cement-rendered and lined front and side elevations with polished and painted ashlar dressings and details, roughcast finish to rear with droved ashlar dressings. Base course, band course at eaves. Margins framing elevations. Architraved windows to S (front) and E elevations, margined elsewhere, all with projecting cills.

S (PRINCIPAL) FRONT: entrance door at ground floor centre with projecting stone porch comprising stone steps at base with flanking cubic bases to columns with decorated lower shafts and capitals supporting entablature and blocking course; corresponding pilasters with matching decoration flanking entrance door; 9-panel entrance door with plate glass fanlight above. Stone balls on cubic bases flanking porch. Bipartite windows at ground and 1st floor bays to left. Ground floor windows corniced.

E ELEVATION: 2 bays, symmetrical, with corniced ground floor windows.

W ELEVATION: 2 bays, with small windows, modern entrance porch intersecting at ground floor left.

N (REAR) ELEVATION: stair tower with tall round-arched stair window (now partially infilled) projecting at centre, single-bay infill with modern entrance steps and 2-bay 2-storey infill in re-entrant angles to left and right respectively.

Plate glass timber sash and case windows to most openings. Some 12-pane surviving at ground floor rear, stair window formerly multi-pane sash and case with border glazing. Grey slate piended roof including stair tower and later additions. Profiled cast-iron gutters with palmettes to side and rear elevations, cast-iron gutters and downpipes elsewhere. 2 ridge stacks flanking centre of principal front. W (2-flue) stack roughcast and coped with octagonal cans, E stack with ashlar base and 5 corniced flue shafts.

INTERIOR: tiled vestibule floor, panelled screen with etched glass uppers. Most internal fittings (except staircase) surviving at ground floor including panelled shutters and doors, chimneypieces and plasterwork (ornate in hall).

BOUNDARY WALLS: random rubble, with semicircular concrete cope to E. Random rubble retaining wall with ceramic cope to SW. Painted gatepiers each comprising 4 clustered columns corniced with domed caps. Cast and wrought-iron 2-leaf gates.

Statement of Interest

Records of 1834 show the house belonged to Galbraith of Machrihanish. Title deeds of 1875 name William Mitchell (of Springbank Distillery)

as the new owner which would suggest he commissioned the later 19th century alterations around this date. Although this is a plain building, it is built on an surprisingly large scale and bears testimony to the confidence and wealth prevalent in Campbeltown?s whisky industry in the early 19th century.

External Links

• Historic Environment Scotland Listing
• Wikidata Q56628571

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  For the Record
• 
  Development and Design of Heritage Sensitive Sites: Strategies for Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas
• 
  [(Shropshire)] [By (author) Nikolaus Pevsner] published on (January, 1958)
• 
  Gwent/Monmouthshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of Wales)
• 
  Yorkshire West Riding: Leeds, Bradford and the North (Pevsner Architectural Guides / Buildings of England)
• 
  Old House Handbook 2 Books Bundle Collection (Old House Handbook: A Practical Guide to Care and Repair,Old House Eco Handbook: A Practical Guide to Retrofitting for Energy-Efficiency & Sustainability)