Monument record MHG25229 - Drimnin House

NM55NE 10.00 5538 5504

NM55NE 10.01 5534 5510 steading

For associated monumental tomb (NM 5507 5523), see NM55NE 9.

Drimnin House. Gawky Elizabethan manor built in the 1850's for Sir Charles Gordon and probably incorporating walling of the previous house on the site, which was destroyed by fire in 1849. Two-storey-and-attic, five-bay W front, all rendered. At the corners, little square bartizans topped by spiky finialled urns. In the centre, the Gordon coat of arms above a battlemented porch. The second and fourth bays have shaped gablets rising above the crenellated parapet. At the second bay, a two-storey canted bay window. Surprisingly, there is no matching projection at the fourth bay, whose two-light windows are disconcertingly off-centre in relation to the gablet above.
The interior has been opulent and still retains much of its original decoration. Engraved glass doors from the porch to the hall. The walls of the hall, the stair beyond, and the first-floor landing are all painted in imitation of large slabs of yellow marble, each 'slab' a just perceptibly different shade from those of its neighbours. Cornice studded with identical female heads. Bewtween the hall and the stair, a screen of Corinthian columns, their scagliola shafts farker than the walls' marbling. Painted glass (the paint now fragmentary) in the stair window. On the ground floor, dining room to the left of the hall, severely masculine with a black marble chimneypiece and heavy cornice. Breakfast room beyond. On the right of the hall, library with a vine cornice. On the first floor, interconnecting drawing rooms above the dining room and breakfast room and their feminine counterpart. Walls decorated with painted panels, the lines sprouting foliage at the upper corners. Ceiling plasterwork picked out in white and gold.
J Gifford 1992.