Description

A Marshall Mackenzie, 1890; A Marshall Mackenzie & Son restored top 2 floors and added square entrance tower 1905-11 after fire; George Angus Mitchell alterations circa 1920-25; W wing reduced from 3-storey and attic to single storey 1976. Monumental 2- and 3-storey Baronial mansion sited on high ground in extensive policies overlooking River Dee. Incorporating crenellated round and square towers, shaped and crowstepped gables, tripartite, square-plan and oriel windows, Tudor-arched polished granite doorpiece and window altered from door. Granite with Aberdeen bond and bull-faced margins. Deep base course and mutuled cornices to towers. Relieving arches, timber transoms and mullions, stone mullions to tripartite, oriel and tower windows.

FURTHER DESCRIPTION: 9-bay entrance elevation to NW with broad 2-leaf panelled timber door to 4-stage square tower at right of centre; regularly fenestrated 3-storey bays to left comprising gabled bay immediately to left with Tudor-arched window (altered from door) at ground and oriel above, shaped gable beyond with square-plan window, both with gablehead arrowslits, and round tower at outer left. Tall, slender 4-stage tower in re-entrant angle to right of entrance tower and lower bays at right.

Plate glass glazing in timber sash and case windows. Grey slates with some decorative banded fish scale slates. Coped ashlar stacks and ashlar-coped skews. Cast-iron downpipes with decorative rainwater hoppers and fixings.

INTERIOR: good decorative scheme in place, including moulded cornices and classical chimneypieces, servants bells and 6-panel timber doors. Open-well staircase with timber column-on-vase balusters and dado timber panelling. Morning room oak panelling with decorative fluted pilasters, from Wearing & Ghyllie, London in 1890, stone fireplace, dentilled cornice.

Finely detailed Adam design plasterwork in drawing room with corresponding marble chimneypiece. Green and white marble floor to hall.

TERRACED GARDEN: fine crenellated terrace walls to S and E.

Statement of Interest

B Group with East Lodge, North Lodge, Stables and Walled Garden. Dinnet House is sited in extensive policies which stretch from east to west on high ground overlooking the River Dee. There are two fine Lodge houses, that to the east (also by A Marshall Mackenzie - see separate listing), being of particular interest together with the solid gatepiers and exceptional decorative ironwork gates. There is also a large walled garden sited the south of the drive between the main entrance and the house. The interior of this monumental 14 bedroom house has been carefully restored and somewhat reduced in size with the significant reduction of the west wing in 1976 by the current (2006) owner. The interior had been neglected for some years after service as the Bellhaven School from 1939-45. Dinnet House was built as a shooting lodge for Charles H Wilson MP who had purchased the estate from the trustees of the Marquis of Huntly.

External Links

• Historic Environment Scotland Listing
• Wikidata Q17771335

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

• 
  Wiltshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Central Leinster: Kildare, Laois and Offaly (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of Ireland)
• 
  Yorkshire West Riding: Sheffield and the South (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Suffolk: West: The Buildings of England (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Sussex: West (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Oxfordshire: North and West (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)