Description

Alexander Ellis and James Giles, 1863. 2-storey, 5-bay, square-plan Italianate villa with 4-stage belvedere entrance tower to centre and hipped roof. Squared granite rubble, harled white, with granite detailings; margins to openings, quoins, base course, eaves course, dividing bands to wallhead chimney stack and tower.

E (PRINCIPAL) ELEVATION: 4-stage entrance tower to centre, mullioned bipartite windows to 2nd and semicircular-arched bipartites to3rd stage, dentil-moulded projecting cornice between 3rd and 4th stage, tripartite, semicircular-arched windows to 4th stage, projecting cornice supprorting square-capped roof. Angled, single storey, canted entrance porch to return to left. Advanced double bay to left. Double bay to right with battered wallhead stack to centre.

W (REAR) ELEVATION: advanced 2-storey, canted bay to outer left, advanced single storey, rectangular-plan wing to centre with timber columned porch to right return under oversailing eaves. Slightly advanced double bay to outer right.

N (SIDE) ELEVATION: single storey projecting outhouses to outer bays forming courtyard enclosed by wall with pyramidal capped entrance piers.

S (GARDEN) ELEVATION: Double bay to centre with advanced canted granite bay to centre, 3-light semi-circular-arched windows, balustrade to flat roof. Slightly advanced flanking bays with peinded roofs and semicircular-arched windows to ground floor.

INTERIOR: galleried hall and main reception rooml boasting colonnades of Corinthian columns and entablature. 3 reception rooms to ground floor, 7 bedrooms upstairs.

4-pane sash and case windows. Grey slates, lead flashing, coped ridge stacks.

GATEHOUSE: single storey, 2-bay, L?plan gabled gatehouse. Harled rubble with painted granite margins to openings. Advanced gabled bay to bay to right facing driveway, former entrance bay to left obscured by later addition. Semicircular-arched bipartite windows to gable ends. Overhanging eaves with exposed rafters. Lean-to later addition to rear. 4-pane sash and case windows, grey slates, lead flashing.

ENTRANCE PIERS: low, coped rubble quadrant walls terminating in square, pyramidal capped entrance piers

Statement of Interest

Ellis' best know villa - an elegant Italianate summerhouse designed for parties by the shores of its own man made loch, built on adjacent ground to Corse Castle (see separate listing) ? the archictectural dream of a later generation of the Forbes family, James Ochonar Forbes of Craigievar. The building contractor was Alexander Mitchell of Aberdeen. Similarities inn design with Ellis' own house The Firs, Torphins. Ellis completed his architectural training under William Smith, the architect of Balmoral Castle, in 1846 and was established in his own practice in Aberdeen by 1859 and went into partnership with R G Wilson in 1869, who had trained under Alexander Thompson in Glasgow ? though the Greek Thompson influence is visible in Ellis' use of the square belvedere tower at the centre of the villa five years prior to his partnership with Wilson. The House of Corse was designed as part of a temporary earlier partnership with the artist James Giles RA ? though the contribution of each man to the final design is unknown .

External Links

• Historic Environment Scotland Listing
• Wikidata Q17776766

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.

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