Description

1914. 2-storey, Z-plan, Multi-gabled Arts and Crafts country house with circular turret, crowstepped gables, irregular fenestration and distinctive bull-faced red sandstone dressings. White-painted roughcast harl with red sandstone dressings. Uneven long and short quoins; tabbed window margins; sandstone crowsteps.

SE AND SW (PRINCIPAL) ELEVATIONS: stepped elevation of basically 2 roughly-rectangular blocks with advanced section to right, and principal entrance and turret in re-entrant angle; single-storey garage or coach house adjoining left-hand block at S corner. Timber panelled front door set in recessed porch with round-arched pilastered entrance in irregularly fenestrated piend-roofed entrance block; 6 steps to porch and 2 steps to door; conical-roofed turret adjoining to right. 2-bay, SE-facing block to NE of turret with advanced gable to left and canted bay window to right. 2-bay section to SW of entrance with 3-light windows to right bay and bipartite gabled dormer to left with ball finial; roughly 2-bay irregularly fenestrated SE elevation of this block with gable to right-hand bay. 2 depressed-arch entrances with timber-panelled doors to SW elevation of garage.

NE (GARDEN) ELEVATION: gabled bay to left with tripartite stone-mullioned window to ground with glazed door to central section; irregularly fenestrated piend-roofed bay to right with wallhead stack.

NW (REAR) ELEVATION: long roughly 5-bay range to left: gabled dormer to left bay; 2nd bay from left gabled with 2-storey canted window; tripartite windows to right. Advanced piend-roofed bay to right with 5 steps to timber boarded back door on left return. Gabled garage advanced to outer right.

Timber casements with leaded lights and timber mullions. Rendered stacks with roll-moulded cornices and black clay cans. Stone slates. Cast-iron rainwater goods.

SUNKEN GARDEN AND GARDEN WALL: rectangular sunken rose garden to SE of house composed of inner and outer terrace with low coped retaining walls; central flights of 2 steps to each side. Coped random rubble garden wall extending from NW elevation of house with large circular 'windows'.

Statement of Interest

A very good and externally little-altered example of an Arts and Crafts style country house. The basic style of the house, with its round turret, crowstepped gables, mullioned casements, white-painted harl and irregular stepped plan is fairly typical for a Scottish Arts and Crafts house of this date, and follows the pattern set by leading Scottish Arts and Crafts architects such as Sir Robert Lorimer and James MacLaren. However, the detailing here is extremely interesting and quirky, particularly the combined use of polished and bull-faced sandstone dressings around the principal entrance and windows, and the interplay between the harling and sandstone to create an effect of artful irregularity. Much thought has evidently been put into the design of this house and it is unfortunate that the identity of the architect is presently unknown.

It was not possible to inspect the interior of the house at the time of listing (2005), but one would expect to find good Arts and Crafts timberwork, door furniture and chimneypieces in a house of this type.

According to the Glamis Estate Office, Inchdowrie was built in 1914 and rented to the Countess of Strathmore between 1918 and 1929.

External Links

• Historic Environment Scotland Listing
• Wikidata Q77779675

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

• 
  Yorkshire West Riding: Sheffield and the South (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Surrey (The Buildings of England) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Sussex: West (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Maintaining and Repairing Old Houses: A Guide to Conservation, Sustainability and Economy
• 
  Suffolk: East (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Pioneers of Modern Design: From William Morris to Walter Gropius (Penguin Art & Architecture)