Turnalt House

This small gentleman's residence is situated in the valley of the Barbreck River, 1.9km NE of Barbreck House (No. 155).It was probably built about 1800, at which period Turnalt belonged to the Barbreck estate of General John Campbell and his heir, Duncan Campbell of Lochnell (en.1*). A farmsteading of 19th-century date extends NE of the house, but the area to the sw is wooded, and a former walled garden is situated 80m to the S, on lower ground beside the Barbreck River.

The symmetrical layout, 33m in total length, comprises a two-storeyed main block linked to single-storeyed pavilions by slightly lower flanking wings. The masonry is of local rubble, with dressings of grey sandstone in the sills and mullions of the principal, or sw, front, and the roofs are hipped and slated.

The sw front of the main block is of three bays, with a slightly advanced pedimented centrepiece. The moulded freestone band defining the base of the pediment is carried round the head of the central light of a Venetian window; although the tympanum of this light is blocked externally, the original glazing-bars can be seen from the stair-head landing. The porch below this window is probably an early 19thcenturyaddition. In the side-bays, the ground-floor windows are also tripartite, but flat-headed. Each of the linking wings is lit by a single small window, but the pavilions contained Venetian windows whose side-lights are dummies (cf. No. 155). The main block is surmounted by two substantial chimneystacks whose existing slab cappings, as well as the roof-dormers, are of later date.

The interior retains the tripartite plan characteristic of18th-century houses in Argyll, with flue-bearing walls enclosing an unusually small central division. There are no surviving early fittings, except for some panelled shutters, and the details of the original arrangement are not certain. However, there appears to have been one large room in each side-division of the ground floor, although that to the SE has been reduced in length by a later corridor which extends to the kitchen in the SE pavilion. The stair, although rebuilt, probably occupies its original position, and a door in the passage leading from the stair-hall to the back of the house preserves a fanlight of early 19th-century character. At first floor level the existing subdivisions are of early 20th-century date, and it is uncertain whether there were any reception rooms at this level. The NW pavilion, which communicated with the house but also had an external doorway, subsequently blocked, may have been used as an office.

RCAHMS 1992, visited September 1984

RCAHMS surveyed Turnalt House on 12 September 1984 producing a phased ground-floor plan and southwest elevation at a scale of 1:100. The plan and elevation were redrawn in ink and published at a scale of 1:250 (RCAHMS 1992, 369).