Hayfield House, Walled Garden And Gardners House

This small ruined mansion, of late 18th century date, stands on sloping ground about 250 m from the NW shore of Loch Awe. The building was gutted by fire about 1912 and is now roofless and overgrown by vegetation.

The house consists of a partly-sunk basement and two upper floors; it is rectangular on plan and measures 20'0 m by 8'3 m over walls 0'74 m thick. The principal elevation faces SE and has a frontispiece 7'3 m in width which projects 0'48 m from the main wall-face. The walls are built of local rubble, originally harled. At basement level the quoins and window- and door-dressings are of pinkish sandstone. Polished schist is used for two horizontal bands at ground-floor level, and for the eaves cornice. The remaining dressings consist of alternate blocks of sandstone and polished schist.

A curved forestair with iron handrails rises to the entrance-doorway; this has a moulded architrave and a pulvinated frieze and cornice, and is flanked by two tall narrow windows. Two horizontal bands run across the facade at threshold- and sill-level. At first-floor level there is a large semicircular three-light window, and the frontispiece is surmounted by a triangular pediment containing a circular window. The side bay of the SE facade contain one window in each storey. An early photograph (in the possession of Mrs W Macleod, Hayfield Cottage) shows a hipped roof with two tall windows.

The interior is extremely ruinous. The central portion of the ground-floor contained an entrance-hall with a fireplace, divided by a cross-wall from the staircases one of which led down to the service apartments in the basement and the other up to the first floor. On either side there was one large room on the ground-floor, and two rooms on the first floor. Each room had a fireplace, but none of the surrounds remain intact. A single-storyed block containing two apartments, one of which was a kitchen or bakehouse, is built against the centre of the NW wall and is contemporary with the house. In the early 19th century this block was extended and other ranges added to form a courtyard behind the N corner of the house; this is entered by an arched pend in the NW range. The NE range contained domestic accommodation, and its SE wall is linked to the house by a screen-wall. Probably at the same period, a large steading (PI. 96E) was built 220 m NW of the house.

Hayfield was originally known as Tirevadich, and during the 16th and 17th centuries it was the principal seat of the MacArthurs 'of Inistrynich' (Highland Papers, iv. 53-4; Campbell, Argyll Sasines, ii, no. 260). In the last quarter of the 18th century it was owned by Allan MacDougall, W S, a member of the family of MacDougall of Gallanach. The mansion was built before 1785 when Thomas Newte described it as 'a well-built modern house called Hayfield'. He also states that it 'formerly belonged to a Mr. Campbell who had a castle upon one of the islands', apparently a reference to Campbell of Monzie, owner of Fraoch Eilean (No. 290). In 1803 the estate, which included the island of Inistrynich, was sold to William MacNeil, a Glasgow merchant, who owned it for about 30 years (SRO, Particular Register of Sasines (Argyll), RS 10/16, fol. 88; ibid, Abbreviated Register of Sasines (Argyll), 1781-1820, no. 276; Stat Acct, viii (1793), 354; Newte, Tour, 86). Thereafter the house was occupied by Sir Richard Grierson, 7th Bt. of Lag, and for some time it was known as 'Inistrynich House'. At that period the only building on the island of Inistrynich, 3 km to the E on the opposite bank of Loch Awe, was a small cottage orné, whose remains are now incorporated within later buildings. The name 'Hayfield' was revived about 1865, after the enlargement of Inistrynich House, and the mansion continued to be occupied until about 1912 when it was destroyed by fire (NSA, vii (Argyll), 86, 98; New Register House, Census of 1841, Glenorchy and Inishail Parish, book 6, p.11; Name Book, No. 54, p.53. A detailed report on Inistrynich House has been deposited in the NMRS).

RCAHMS 1975, visited September 1969.

NN02SE 23.02 0763 2337

The walled garden and gardener's house at Hayfield lay immediately above the shore of Loch Awe and are depicted on the OS 1:10000 scale map (1976). The garden is quadrilateral on plan with the gardener's house attached externally to the SE wall. The building (15.6m by 5.8m overall) is a rectangular, two-storey block with internal stone partitions and fireplaces in each room. There is an outshot at the W end. The roof was slated. The first floor may be a later addition.

(LORN96 422-3)

Visited by RCAHMS (JBS), 3 July 1996