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Mansion house built in 1799-1804, commissioned by Adam Gordon of Cairnfield and built by Robert Burn, with later additions. An earlier house was destroyed by fire in 1798, and the current property was re-sited slightly to the North. Until circa 1980, Cairnfield was the ancestral home of the Gordons of Cairnfield. The house is North facing, with 2-stories and a dormerless attic mansion over a raised basement, and with 3 wide bays. It has a pinned rubble front, with contrasting tooled ashlar dressings, and harled or harl pointed rubble elsewhere. There is a slightly advanced and pedimented centre bay in the North entrance front, with a doorway approached by a splayed flight of steps oversailing the raised basement. A wide corniced and pilastered ashlar doorpiece incorporates narrow side lights and a large square fanlight with decorative glazing, and double leaf panelled doors have a Keystoned Venetian window above. An advanced centre bay in the South (garden) front has a ground floor Venetian window and tripartite (blind centre light) above. An 1825 2-storey East service wing, built by William Robertson, is linked to the house by a curved corridor quadrant, with a convex North-East face that is harled, with a regular arcade of engaged Doric columns and a corniced blocking course. The refaced North gable of the wing is constructed of coursed pinned rubble, with harl pointed rubble elsewhere and tooled and polished ashlar dressings. There is a wide, segmental-headed recess in the ground floor of the North gable of the wing, facing the entrance front, with centre window between engaged Doric pilasters. A demi-octagonal stairwell projects in the centre of the West-facing 3-bay front. There is varied glazing, a centre coped ridge stack and a piended Banffshire slate roof. A large garage door is in the East elevation. This wing is similar to the 18th century mirrored wings at Rannas (NJ46SE0005), also in Rathven parish, flanking the court fronting a former mansion. It likely would have been desired to have a similar mirroring wing here, but the steep slope to the Burn of Cairnfield in the West makes this impossible. A small single-storey outbuilding is close to this wing, and has a bellcote and re-used lintel, with the faded inscription 'Gloria in …'.There is a single storey kitchen wing extension in the South-West re-entrant angle over the raised basement, with a balcony and steps leading to garden. It was built in circa 1930 by R. B. Pratt. There are 2-bay East and West gables, and extra-long West raised ground floor windows lighting the drawing room that are fronted by small cast-iron balconies. Between these windows, but overgrown with vegetation, is a reset 1666 datestone. There is a small oval oculus between the first floor windows, a decorated and dated 1802 rainwater head at the East gable, long first floor windows, two sunken attic windows in the piended roof at the East and West gables. Multi-pane glazing is used. There are a pair of long centre coped flues, and a piended platform slate roof. Inside, there is a D-ended entrance lobby with beaded panelled dado and doors, opening right to the drawing room and left to the dining room. A centre doorway leads to the stairhall, and there is a bucrania frieze and decorative centre plaster rose. The stairhall is narrow and bowed at each end, and a top-lit cantilevered staircase rises full-height, with delicate decorative cast-iron balusters and polished wooden handrails. The drawing room has beaded panelled dados, window shutters and doors, corniced overdoors with carved floral decoration, a white marble chimneypiece with cluster columns and a moulded plaster ceiling cornice. The dining room has panelling like the drawing room, and has decorative corniced overdoors with carved ferns and flowers and a moulded plaster ceiling cornice. No original chimneypiece survives. There is a small South-facing parlour, with a basket grate within a re-assembled marble chimneypiece and panelling as elsewhere. On the first floor, there are some D-ended rooms, beaded panelling and simple cornices. The attic has four D-ended rooms. Decorative cast-iron basket grates survive, and there are moulded dado rails. Rooms open into shaped closets formed between curved party walls and there are later built-in chests of drawers in window embrasures. Inside the 18th century service wing, the former ground floor kitchen has been gutted, becoming a garage and chauffeurs quarters in circa 1926. The first floor has been modernised as an independent flatted dwelling, reached by a curved staircase. Stands within a designed landscape (NJ46SW0133). Home Farm to the south of the house (NJ46SW0134).
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Historic Environment Records (HER) 
Moray
HER -
NJ46SW0039 - CAIRNFIELD HOUSE