Description

Late 18th to early 19th century and earlier 19th century, reworked mid 19th century. Single storey, 2-storey and 2-storey with attic, 5-bay crowstepped house with corbelled Jacobean entrance bay with nepus gable and castellated windowheads. Whitewashed harl with contrasting sandstone ashlar dressings and quoin strips. Base and string courses. Moulded basket-arched doorpiece; chamfered arrises and stone mullions.

SE (PRINCIPAL) ELEVATION: symmetrical 3-bay block to left with advanced gabled bay at centre comprising rounded angles at ground corbelled to square at 1st floor, panelled timber door with 2-part fanlight in moulded doorpiece rising into blind panel, 1st floor window and semicircular pediment surmounted by relief-carved 5-pointed star; small glazed light in nepus gable; returns with single window to each floor at left and to ground floor right; flanking bays each with square-plan wide-centre tripartite at ground, single window at 1st floor and tiny timber-pedimented dormer window above. Earlier, slightly set-back lower bays to right of centre with full-height castellated bay incorporating wide-centre tripartite window to each floor at left and single window to each floor at right.

NW (REAR) ELEVATION: variety of elements to altered elevation including single storey piended wing with gable and castellated window in bays to right and piended pavilion bay at outer right. Bays to left with 2-storey gable and lean-to link obscuring early circular window. Ancillary building (see below) projecting at outer left angle.

4-, 12-pane and plate glass glazing patterns in timber sash and case windows. Grey slates. Coped ashlar stacks with polygonal cans and ashlar-coped skews with beak skewputts. Decorative bargeboarding and timber finials to dormers.

INTERIOR: much interior detail retained including moulded cornices (some renewed), coombed ceilings, 6-panelled doors, panelled shutters, picture rails, marble and timber fire surrounds (some imported). Panelled porch with part-glazed 2-leaf screen door, stair hall with timber dog-leg staircase, barley-twist balusters and ball-finialled newels leading to landing with segmental-arched openings and round-arched niche.

ANCILLARY BUILDING: 2-storey harled former meat store with glazed and louvered openings, slate slab shelf and stone flag floor.

BOUNDARY WALLS, GATEPIERS AND GATES: flat-coped quadrant walls with pyramidally-coped, stop-chamfered, square-section ashlar gatepiers and hoopwork gates and high rubble boundary walls to rear garden.

Statement of Interest

Built in a fine setting overlooking the Morayshire countryside and shielded from the Model Farm to its rear by enclosing walls, Linkwood House also retains good interior details. It was successfully transformed in the mid 19th century from a modest farmhouse into a rather more grand residence for the owner of the nearby Linkwood Distillery. A photograph taken in 1856 shows two plain centre door dwellings, that to right being the earliest with simple canopied door, and that to left taller and broader with a fairly large single storey conical-roofed projecting porch with moulded doorway. Another photograph dated 1861 shows the later block exactly as it appears today, with a single storey and attic, 3-bay cottage adjoining at the left (SW); the earlier bays to the right are obscured by a tree. An early conservatory was destroyed by a hurricane in 1987, and subsequently replaced. Shaw mentions "several handsome houses in the parish, particularly at Linkswood (sic)".

External Links

• Historic Environment Scotland Listing
• Wikidata IDs Q77781331 Q77781335 Q77781338

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

• 
  Hampshire: Winchester and the North (The Buildings of England) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  The Shredded Chef: 120 Recipes for Building Muscle, Getting Lean, and Staying Healthy
• 
  Huddersfield in 50 Buildings
• 
  Old House Eco Handbook: A Practical Guide to Retrofitting for Energy-Efficiency & Sustainability
• 
  Listed Buildings: The Law and Practice of Historic Buildings, Ancient Monuments and Conservation Areas
• 
  Oxfordshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)