Description

Dated 1878. Mirrored pair of substantial 2-storey, 2-bay, L-plan, Baronial, houses forming semi-detached T-plan. Squared and snecked quarry faced red sandstone, buff sandstone ashlar dressings, rubble stone to sides and rear, battered base course, crowstepped gables and dormers, bracketted eaves cornice, chamfered quoins, chamfered margins, stone mullions.

SE (PRINCIPAL) ELEVATION: symmetrical No 79 to left, No 81 to right, double advanced gables with 3-light projecting window with cable moulding and weathered coping at ground floor, bipartite at 1st floor with square panel above overstepped by rope hoodmould with knotted label stop. Round-headed slit opening in gable head. Porch with crowstepped single pitch roof in re-entrant angle, cable moulding to basket-arched opening square light above with cable moulding. Window flanking porch and in return of porch. Bipartite in crowstepped dormerheaded window above, and similarly detailed single window in return of advanced gable to centre.

NE ELEVATION: blank gable end.

SW ELEVATION: blank gable end.

NW ELEVATION: brick built single storey addition to centre of elevation with door and window in return, abutting ground floor inner bays. Gabled dormerheads above with small window between. Plain margins. Conservatory to rear of No 79, possibly contemporary with house, brick base, timber frame, miniature cupola feature with stained glass piended roof and finial.

Timber sash and case windows to No 79, 2-pane at front, 4-pane at rear. Modern 2-pane replacements to No 81. Leaded lights and stained glass to porch and ground floor bay to left at No 79. Grey slate, stone skews. Skewputts, ashlar stacks to gablehead and ridge at dividing wall. Cast-iron downpipes with hopper dated 1878 at valley of double gable.

INTERIOR: elaborate plasterwork survives in principal rooms of No 79, strapwork ceiling decoration with rosettes and shell motifs and floreate cornices. Egg and dart and dentil cornices, arch and consoles in hall. Cast-iron banisters. Ornate glazed floor tiles and wall tiles to dado height in entrance porch. No 81, original features gone.

OUTBUILDINGS, BOUNDARY WALLS AND GATEPIERS: brick sheds in gardens at rear. Rubble stone boundary walls with glazed coping to sides and rear, chamfered ashlar coping to front. Square section battered gatepiers with decorative band and carved pyramidal tops.

Statement of Interest

Plaque set in boundary wall to left of No 79 with name of John Armour, architect of Old Irvine Academy, and the nearby Bank Street School of 1875. Suggesting that he was either architect or resident of these villas or both. Names carved in gatepiers, No 79 "Mayfield", No 81 "Oakfield".

External Links

• Historic Environment Scotland Listing
• Wikidata Q77772945

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

• 
  Worcestershire Revised Edition (Buildings of England) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Somerset: North and Bristol: The Buildings of England (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Cumbria: Cumberland, Westmorland and Furness (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Dorset (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  London 4: North: North v. 4 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Old House Handbook: A Practical Guide to Care and Repair by Hunt. Roger ( 2008 ) Hardcover