Inveraray, Lochgilphead Road, North Cromalt Lodge

LODGES. The earliest of the existing lodges is that at the Garron Bridge, designed by Robert Mylne in 1775 (No. 195). In addition to those described below, there is a much-altered lodge of early 19th-century date on the Dalmally Road at Balantyre (NN 085109), and there are estate cottages of the same period at Bushang (NN 108103) and in the nearby Deer Park (NN 110106), both preserving latticed windows but reroofed with broad eaves like those of the Salmon Draught Cottage (No. 249).

Main Lodge (NN 095086). This single-storeyed rectangular lodge was built in 1795-6 immediately NE of the former smithy at the NW end of Front Street (No. 201), at the gate of the approach from Inveraray to the castle and Cherry Park (en.13). It measures 11m by 8m and is built of diagonally tooled chlorite-schist ashlar, with a hipped slated roof having a central chimneystack. The three-bay NNE front faces the entrance to the castle drive and has twelve-pane sash windows like the one in the ESE end-wall fronting the road. The central parts of these walls are recessed within a continuous plinth, pilastered quoins and eaves-courses. The interior is divided into a lobby and two rooms.

South Cromalt Lodge (NN 084070). This two-storeyed lodge was built in the late 18th century on the W side of the Inveraray-Lochgilphead road, now the A83, at the S end of the policies, where there was originally a private entrance to the upper avenue above the Fisherland meadow. It measures5.8m square overall and is built of harled rubble, with a pyramidal slated roof rising to a central chimneystack. The three-bay E front has an added central porch, and very small six-pane windows in the upper storey. The ground floor, whose fireplace has been renewed, comprises a stair-lobby and one main room, and the upper floor is divided into an L-shaped main room and a small bedroom by a partition-wall which was lined with newspapers dated 1843.

North Cromalt Lodge (NN 086073). This lodge, which was built in 1801, perhaps to the design of Alexander Nasmyth (en.14), stands at the W side of the A83, 400m NE of South Cromalt and at the S end of the Fisherland Meadow and the Town Avenue. It has a rectangular two-storeyed central block with a hipped slated roof and chimneys at the centres of the sidewalls, and flanking hip-roofed single-storeyed lean-to blocks, of which that to the NE has been heightened and extended. There was originally a central door in the NW front, and each side-block had a door in one end-wall and a recess for a false door in the other, one of which now contains a window. The upper floor of the central block contains a series of round-headed recesses, some containing windows, and the NE side-block originally had a similar recess in its side-wall. The interior is divided into two rooms at each level by a timber stair encased in brick walls, but few other early features are preserved.

RCAHMS 1992, visited October 1988