Field Visit

Date August 1988

Event ID 1082977

Category Recording

Type Field Visit

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1082977

RCAHMS Inventory: Argyll Volume 7; Mid Argyll & Cowal, Medieval & Later Monuments

Hafton House stands on a low wooded promontory on the S shore of the Holy Loch, 1.2km NW of Hunter's Quay. Originally a small mansion known as Orchard Park (en.1*), it was bought about 1820 by James Hunter, who immediately began substantial additions to N and E in Perpendicular Gothic style. Further additions were made by his son lames about 1840, and the house was subsequently praised for its 'mixed modern Gothic' style and its situation (en.2).

The original building, probably of late 18th-century date, was a two-storeyed rectangular block aligned E-W (en.3), on the site of the present staircase-hall and kitchen area. Parts of the ground- and first-floor levels appear to survive in the kitchen and the rooms above, while a window and wall-head belonging to its N wall were recently discovered in the S wall of the present first-floor N function-room. The location of the original kitchen may be indicated by two thick (1.2m) N-S walls at the centre of this area.

The present form of the house is largely a result of Hunter's rebuilding, which provided two new two-storeyed frontages to N and E, the latter also including a basement. The entire house is constructed of harl-pointed rubble, with imitation snecked-rubble patterning, and ashlar or tooled freestone dressings. The three-light rectangular windows are mullioned and transomed and have Perpendicular label-moulds, and the wall-heads have stepped crenellations or, in the centre bays, flat-topped arcades. The angles and bay-divisions are marked by octagonal turrets which rise high above the wall heads.The E facade, 20.2m in length excluding its corner turrets, is symmetrical around a central canted bay-window with a three-light window above. The N facade, 25.2m in length, is asymmetrical; its central entrance-bay, with crenellated porch (now partially obscured by a later porte-cochere), is flanked by a W bay with ground-floor bay window and a slightly advanced E bay. Internally, the rib-vaulted N porch gives access to an inner hall originally leading, through moulded archways, to two E rooms and one W room. The W room ('Green Room') has a black marble fireplace and a ribbed ceiling with a central traceried star. The NE room has a white marble fireplace, a trefoil wall-frieze and a ribbed ceiling with bosses and a central roundel containing flowing tracery. An elaborate Perpendicular-traceried double door leads into the SE room, which has a similar fireplace and ceiling and a large bay-window. Separately accessible to the SE are an office and library; the latter has a panelled ceiling with gilt bosses, and a Gothick chimneypiece of black marble.

The alterations of about 1840 saw the reconstruction or removal of some earlier sections to S and SW. The first addition was a NW wing extending 9.8m to the w, slightly setback from the existing N facade and of two rather lower storeys. It is two-bayed to the N and three-bayed to the Wand has detailing similar to the earlier block but with two five-centred arched openings in the W wall. Thereafter the existing two-storeyed Sand W accommodation was reconstructed and heightened to three storeys, its W section retaining the existing first-floor ceiling heights but its E section being swept away in favour of a new principal staircase and a large S room. The new additions are battlemented and turreted and of three irregularly-windowed bays to the S. They are surmounted by a tower with heavily-corbelled and crenellated parapet and three-light windows. Two further additions were the turreted porte-cochere, added to the N porch, and a five-bayed conservatory, with octagonal angle turrets, at the S end of the E facade; this hasf our internal iron columns with foliage-capitals.

Internally, the principal feature of the work of about 1840was the new stair-hall, with its double stair surmounted by an elaborate ribbed ceiling with circular lantern and shallow dome. The hall is entered by a N archway from the original inner hall and gives access by further archways to E and S to the library and office, and to a new S room, with panelled ceiling and black marble chimneypiece. At first-floor level, four-centred arches with wall-shafts give access from the stair-landing to E and N bedrooms, now converted into large function-rooms, while mezzanine archways on the W lead to service accommodation at the original lower first-floor level, and in the later second-floor additions. The large billiard room in the NW angle of the added range has a Gothick chimneypiece of white marble. The only other room o elaboration dating from this phase is a small circular lobby linking library and conservatory, with doors and Perpendicular-traceried windows separated by arched recesses, and a shallow dome with ribs springing from foliated corbels and meeting in a central pendant.

The kitchen court incorporated in the W side of the building, which appears to date mainly from the 1840s, has a tall arched entrance surmounted by a belfry.

ARMORIAL PANEL. A sandstone panel has been reset in the E wall of the porch. It bears the Hunter arms, three hunting-horns (with knotted straps), with an anchor for crest and the motto S [PER] O ('I hope').

GARDENS. A terraced garden extends S from the house, as shown on late 19th-century watercolours (en.4). The upper wall is of rubble with a moulded coping and steps of sandstone. A lower terrace extends to enclose the E side of the house. A baluster sundial in the garden, which has lost the dial-plate, bears on the plinth the inscription 'Presented by Alexander Stewart, builder Dunoon, in testimony of gratitude to James Hunter Esq. of Hafton'. The donor is named in Pigot's Directory of 1837, and may have carried out work for the younger James Hunter in the 1840s. A large walled garden situated 200m S of the house bears the date 1804 above the N entrance-arch.

RCAHMS 1992, visited August 1988