Islay, Ardnave House

NR 283 730. This house, which faces S overlooking Ardnave Loch, is a plain harled and limewashed building of late 18th-century or early 19th-century date. It is a two-storeyed building of T-plan form, incorporating a bow-fronted projection to the s and a rear wing. The main block, which was formerly entered by a doorway (now blocked up) in the sw re-entrant, measures 12.4m in length by 7.1m over all. The windows have square-arrised surrounds, and the roof, which terminates in plain gable copes, appears to be splayed and sprocketed at the eaves. A single-storeyed porch and outhouse have been added to the E side of the rear wing, and an external forestair with a solid balustrade rises to a first-floor entry in the NE re entrant, an indication perhaps that the house was at one time subdivided for separate occupation. The interior contains no visible features of interest.

The steading lies some 30m to the W of the house. The principal or SE facade, which measures 33.7m in length incorporates three arch-pointed recessed bays and is crowned by a battlemented parapet. It is flanked by single- storeyed stables-blocks and there are some partly ruinous ancillary ranges grouped around the courtyard at the rear.

The builder of this house was probably Duncan Campbell who died in 1825 and was buried near Ardnave Point*.

Visited June 1979

RCAHMS 1984

*(His table-tomb is contained within a railed burial-enclosure at NR 291744. He was succeeded by the elder of his two daughters, for whom see Notes and Queries, 6th series, 4 (July-December 1881), 494).