Description

After 1860. Single and 2-storey with raised basement, 3-bay Scots Baronial style house on ground falling steeply to SW. Squared and snecked sandstone rubble with bull-faced basement; dressed quoins and margins; rendered gable to left at SW. Eaves course. Crowstepped gables; corbels; pedimented windowheads and arrowslits. Stop-chamfered arrises and stone mullions.

SW (GARDEN) ELEVATION: monumental elevation with crowstepped gables and raised basement. Slightly set-back bay to centre with asymmetrical fenestration to basement and 1st floor including gunloop, and stair window close to eaves above. Broad gabled bay projecting at left with window to basement, canted 5-light window to ground floor with blocking course giving way to decorative ironwork balustrade and set-back window at 1st floor. Narrower gable in bay to right with window to basement, 5-light canted window to ground corbelled to further canted angle and bipartite window at 1st floor.

NE (MOUNT ERICHT ROAD) ELEVATION: tall crowstepped gable to outer left with window to right and gunloop to left at ground, further window to centre above and corbelled outer left angle; narrow blank bay to centre and broader gable to right with stepped corbel, pitch-roofed porch with boarded timber door on return to right projecting into boundary wall at right and 2 windows to 1st floor.

SE ELEVATION: modern conservatory at ground with deep-set porch (original main entrance) to right leading to 6-panelled timber door at outer right; corbelled M-gable (that to right crowstepped, that to left with broad gablehead stack) at 1st floor with 2 windows and recessed centre feature. Further window to 1st floor of set-back bay at outer left, and satellite dish.

NW ELEVATION: single storey and raised basement, bowed bay projecting at left, with window to bowed elevation and 2 further windows on return to right over lean-to porch and part-glazed timber door in re-entrant angle at basement. Taller set-back face with window to right at 1st floor breaking eaves into stone-pediment.

Multi-pane and plate glass glazing patterns in timber sash and case windows; canted windows to SW with coloured top lights; margined stair window. Grey slates. Coped ashlar stacks with some cans; ashlar-coped skews; cast-iron downpipes with decorative rainwater hoppers and fixings.

INTERIOR: some fine decorative plasterwork cornices and ceiling roses; panelled shutters and brass sash lifts. Grey marble and timber fire-surrounds, latter with fluted pilasters, corniced overmantel with mirror and tiled cheeks. Encaustic-tiled floor and glazed ceramic-tiled dado to porch leading to stair hall with cantilevered dog-leg staircase with turned balusters. Boarded dado to bathroom with traditional china handbasin and pedestal. Early hand pump retained in basement.

ANCILLARY BUILDING: single storey and raised basement, 3-bay, piended and slated, squared rubble ancillary to NW.

SE ELEVATION: bay to right with round-headed pend entrance, small window to approximate centre with corbelled polygonal stack immediately to left above, and bay to left with lean-to porch with modern timber door on return to right and single window above breaking eaves into semicircular-head.

SW ELEVATION: window to basement and ground floor, latter breaking eaves into pedimented dormerhead, 2 horizontally-aligned gunloops at right.

NW ELEVATION: bipartite window to left of centre and broad wallhead stack to right.

NE (MOUNT ERICHT ROAD) ELEVATION: blank elevation incorporated into boundary wall.

BOUNDARY WALLS WITH GATEPIERS: coped rubble boundary walls with ball- and pyramidally-finialled square-section gatepiers.

Statement of Interest

Bengarth was built by local coal merchant, Johnny Dick who worked from premises in nearby Tannage Street on land purchased from the Rattray family in 1860. Mr Dick was chairman of St Johnstone's football club, Perth, and attended every match in his Rolls Royce which was kept solely for that purpose.

External Links

• Historic Environment Scotland Listing
• Wikidata Q56626962

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

• 
  Farrow & Ball How to Decorate: Transform your home with paint & paper
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  The green guide for historic buildings: how to improve the environmental performance of listed and historic buildings
• 
  [(Bedfordshire, Huntingdon and Peterborough)] [By (author) Nikolaus Pevsner] published on (January, 1968)
• 
  Dorset (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
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  Sussex: East with Brighton and Hove (Buildings of England) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  A Buying and Owning a Listed Building: A Brief Guide