Description

Mid 19th century, perhaps enlarged from ealier house. 2-storey, basically rectangular-plan, large Italianate villa. Buff sandstone coursers, painted dressings, grey slate roof. Base course, band course at 1st floor level (dentilled and moulded at entrance porch, w elevation), bracketted cornice and blocking course; margined angles, painted at ground floor W elevation; keystoned, moulded round-headed arches at entrance porch; 2 tripartite and one 5-light canted window at ground floor with pilaster strip margins and colonnette mullions, foliat e capitals and moulded round arched lights with moulded, dentilled corni cen and patera frieze corbelled, moulded and shouldered architraves at 1 1st floor main elevations, mostly plate glass sash and case glazing; pro minent single and paired channelled, corniced and bracketted stacks; pla tform and peinded roofs.

W ELEVATION: round-headed, keystoned and cavetto-moulded doorpiece with pilasters and festooned brackets at centre return of advanced 2-bay entrance porch, new door formed from window at right, open arch at right and right return, traceried at left, paterae at spandrels, two 4-pane wi dows at 1st floor flanking regimental badge of the Black Watch, blank ar chitraved oculus at right return; bay at main elevation at left with cor niced bipartite window at ground floor, window at 1st, bay at right with round-headed bipartite at ground floor, 2 windows at 1st.

S ELEVATION: 3-bay block recessed at centre with door formed from window at left, 2 windows at right, 3 at 1st floor, distyle, flat-roofed doric portico projecting at ground floor; bay at left with 5-light canted win dow at ground floor rising to bipartite with side windows at 1st; bayat right with advanced central bay, tripartite window at ground floor, bipa rtite at 1st.

E ELEVATION: slightly advanced 2-bay block at left with 2 round-headed windows at ground floor, 2 windows at 1st; slightly lower 4-bay block at right with 4 bipartite windows at ground and 1st floor.

N ELEVATION: blank gables at left and right, various doors and windows including stair window.

INTERIOR: some richly moulded ceilings and cornices, and original chimneypieces. Well stair with carved newel posts and cast-iron balusters, border-glazed stained and etched glass stair window.

FORMER SERVICE WING: immediately to the N and formerly attached to main house. 2-storey, single and bipartite windows with painted margins, piended roof.

RETAINING WALL AND BALUSTRADE: bull-faced coursed retaining wall at S with coped ashlar panels and balusters, extending to VC House (listed separately) at E.

Statement of Interest

Dunalistair was formerly named Fort House and as such is noted as the residence of General George Hunter in 1843, and of George Gordon in 1851 and 1852. From thence it passed to George Rait and in 1886 to the Gilroy family. The 1857-58 OS map shows the house had by that time assumed its present proportions. Dunalistair was acquired in 1920 for the Black Watch War Memorial and continued to be used as a holiday home for the families of that regiment until it was closed in 1983 and subsequently sub-divided into flats. The former billiard room (circa 1880) to the east was connected to the house by a conservatory (demolished); it became a trophy/memorial room and is now VC house (see below). Ther is an altered and extended lodge at Hill Street.

External Links

• Historic Environment Scotland Listing
• Wikidata Q17813553

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

• 
  Period property manual, victorian house manual 2 books collection set by ian rock
• 
  Cork: City and County (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of Ireland)
• 
  Pioneers of Modern Design: From William Morris to Walter Gropius (Penguin Art & Architecture)
• 
  Sussex: West (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  [(Shropshire)] [By (author) Nikolaus Pevsner] published on (January, 1958)
• 
  Somerset: North and Bristol: The Buildings of England (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)