Description

Late 18th century. 2-storey, 3-bay, T-plan, symmetrical farmhouse. Harled with painted margins to openings, rubble granite with squared courses to rybats and quoins. Regular fenestration to principal, S facing, elevation with door to centre. 2-storey, advanced gabled wing to centre of rear elevation. Canted, single storey additions to returns to main block. Irregular fenestration to gable ends. 4-pane sash and case windows. Grey slates, lead flashing, coped gable stacks and skews with scrolled skew putts.

INTERIOR: not seen 2002

Statement of Interest

Believed by repute to have originally been a coaching house or inn on the old Tarland-Alford road. Stylistically this is plausible as the house is typical of the late eighteenth century inn or manse but also equally an 'improved' farmhouse. Furthermore, it is unlikely that an inn would be built at the same date so close to the equally commodious Aberdeen Arms in Tarland (see separate listing). As such the house was most likely built for the principal tenant farmer or factor of the Cromar estate. In the arrangement of the elevation the house displays a formal, 2-storey, symmetrical arrangement consistent with Scottish building post 1750, viz. three bays with a central doorway and flanking rectangular windows, a window to each bay upstairs aligned accordingly. The whole built according to strict rules of mathematical proportion. Dismissing a knowledge of theoretical geometric proportion amongst Scottish masons Naismith has ascribed the prevalence of such buildings to "their [Scottish masons] natural instinct for disciplined thinking coupled to the spirit prevailing in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries for classical order and balance.....It would not be beyond expectation to find that the builders of the Scottish countryside, working in an age when order and balance were regarded as imperative, created well proportioned designs without effort...All if it down to earth and practical." Though builder's pattern books, such as the Rudiments of Architecture, 1777, which contain detailed tables of proportion as well as stock elevations suggest otherwise. Nonetheless the house is a fine late 18th century, 2-storey house of the type that can be found throughout Scotland. Tillychardoch has similar scrolled skewputts to the old parish church, Tarland and the Aberdeen Arms Hotel, Tarland (see separate listings) suggesting the work of the same masons.

External Links

• Historic Environment Scotland Listing
• Wikidata Q17780197

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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