Description

Brown and Watt, 1900. 2-storey and attic, 2-bay Freestyle villa with later additions and alterations. Tooled coursed granite finely finished to margins. Base course; 1st floor cill course; long and short dressings and quoins; overhanging eaves with bargeboards; open half-timbered detail to gables; Art Nouveau gargoyles.

NE (PRINCIPAL) ELEVATION: asymmetrical; deeply chamfered doorway to ground floor of bay to left, 2-leaf panelled timber door reached by 2 stone steps, single-pane fanlight, hoodmould; bipartite window to 1st floor above; 5-light canted window to ground floor of advanced gabled bay to right, forming balcony at 1st floor, 2 gargoyles; tripartite window to 1st floor; horizontal 2-pane window set in gablehead. Outer left angle chamfered, 3 glazed arrowslit openings to ground floor, glazed round-arched arrowslit opening to 1st floor, corbelled angle turret above, with gargoyles, faux crenellated parapet, decorative Art Nouveau cast-iron finial.

NW ELEVATION: asymmetrical; gabled; irregularly placed openings.

SW ELEVATION: asymmetrical; 3-bay; piend-roofed service wing advanced to left, with dormer to attic; modern conservatory to ground floor of flanking bay to right, window to 1st floor, above, rectangular dormer to attic; 4-light rectangular-plan window through ground and 1st floors of outer right angle, with gargoyle to 1st floor.

SE ELEVATION: near-symmetrical; gabled; tripartite stair window to centre, stepped up from right to left, 3-pane round-arched fanlight above; chamfered outer right angle with angle turret (see above); rectangular-plan window to outer left angle (see above).

Predominantly 2-pane timber sash and case windows. Piended grey slate roof with lead ridges and rooflights. Coped gablehead stacks with circular cans. Cast-iron rainwater goods.

INTERIOR: not seen 1999.

GATES, GATEPIERS AND BOUNDARY WALLS: square-plan granite gatepiers to N of house with tooled necks reading "WHINHILL HOUSE", and pyramidal caps. Simple cast-iron gate. Low coped granite walls to NE and SE, swept up with Aberdeen snecking to E.

Statement of Interest

Alexander Brown (1852-1952) and George Watt (1864-1931) formed a partnership of surveyor and architect, working on a variety of commissions from churches to tenements in Aberdeen. Watt had worked in Glasgow for Campbell, Douglas and Sellars, and the influence of the Edwardian architecture of Glasgow, more restrained in granite, is clear in this and many of his other buildings. The Art Nouveau gargoyles and iron finial suggest the influence of Charles Rennie Mackintosh, the turret is baronial, whilst the half-timbered gables and tripartite windows look to the Old English Style, and perhaps also the work of William Leiper.

External Links

• Historic Environment Scotland Listing
• Wikidata Q17769996

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

• 
  Old House Care and Repair
• 
  Harrow on the Hill: A photographic portrayal of listed buildings and structures (Historic Buildings Picture Guides)
• 
  Development and Design of Heritage Sensitive Sites: Strategies for Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas
• 
  Oxfordshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Northamptonshire: Buildings of England Series (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Somerset: North and Bristol: The Buildings of England (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)