Ardconnel Road, Craigvarren House Oban, Argyll and Bute, Scotland, UK

Listed Building Description

Text courtesy of Historic England. © Crown Copyright, reprinted under the Open Government License.

Later 19th century, low 2-storey with 1st floor breaking eaves 5-bay, stripped gothic villa, with French and Tudor gothic influences. L-plan, with 2-storey tower in re-entrant angle and cruciform ridge giving 4 gabled wings. Single bay addition to E gable and 2-storey square tower breaking eaves in re-entrant angle. White painted, squared and stugged rubble walls with droved dressings. Stop-chamfered arrises to quoins and window jambs, segmental-headed door and window openings, roll-moulded entrance door surround. Addition without distinctive dressings or chamfering. N (PRINCIPAL) ELEVATION: 5-bay elevation; bay 1, 2 storey addition to E gable with dormer breaking eaves. Bay 2, 2 narrow windows, closely spaced at ground floor, dormer breaking eaves above. Additional narrow window between bays 2 and 3, at ground floor. Bay 3, window at ground floor only. Bay 5, tower with windows at ground, and 1st floors of E and N faces, deep bracketted timber cornice and swept eaves, entrance door at N face, ground floor, blank panel over; Bay 6 advanced and gabled, bipartite window at 1st floor. W ELEVATION: 2-bay elevation, with gable end of S range to right. Bay 1, bipartite windows at ground floor, and 1st floors breaking eaves. Bay 2, 3-light canted window centring gable at ground floor, with bipartite above. S (REAR) ELEVATION: 5-bay elevation, with gabled end of W range to left. Bay 1, bipartite window at 1st floor, 2 ground windows, widely spaced. Large stair window to landing in bay 2. Bays 3-5, windows at 1st floor, breaking eaves at 3 and 4, modern single storey extension at ground floor. Timber sash and case windows, plate glass to narrow and bipartite openings, 4-pane elsewhere. Stained glass stair window. Grey slate to main roof pitches, dormers and piend-roofed E addition. Diminishing fishscale bands to bell-cast pyramidal tower roof, decorative wrought-iron finial at apex. Plain timber barge boards to gables and eaves, except for filigree barge board to E gable. Deep, bracketted timber cornice and eaves to tower. Cast-iron guttering and downpipes. Tall polygonal cans to stacks with 2 circular replacements. 2-flue stacks to each gable apex except single flue to W, additional 4- flue stack centring principal ridge. INTERIOR: original timber stair surviving. Rubble boundary wall with 1 rubble drum pier surviving. 2 droved ashlar pedestrian gatepiers with stop-chamfered arrises and pyramidal caps with moulded arrises.

Listed Building Statement of Special Interest

One of Oban's most distinctive villas with original external details surviving intact, except for missing filigree barge boards.