Milton Brodie House

The nineteenth-century south facade of the house, which is rendered with incisions made to resemble ashlar,[1] has seven bays, the central five with a single storey, and with the outer bays of two storeys advanced and wider than the rest, designed to camouflage the rear gable ends of the original house to the rear.[2][3] In the centre of the facade is the main entrance, with a tetrastyle portico supported by Ionic columns.[2]

The rest of the house is of two storeys plus an attic,[1] and has four staircases, each one serving what were once free-standing wings prior to the addition of the facade.[2] It is harled, with ashlar detailing.[1] Its interior retains elaborate decorations, including plaster cornices and marble chimneypieces, dating from Robertson's remodelling.[1]

In the grounds is an 18th-century garden house, octagonal in shape with a pyramid roof, which contains a sundial dated to 1661.[3] The grounds are accessed by two gates, which have square ashlar gatepiers with carved ball finials, which are included in the listing for the building.[1]

The house has been praised for its elegance. Architectural historians David Walker and Matthew Woodworth, writing in their Pevsner guidebook on the region, describe it as a "decidedly elegant country villa, and the epitome of summer splendour",[2] while Charles McKean calls it "a delightful courtyard house", and praises its "unusually beautiful, feminine south front".[3]

The land that Milton Brodie House stands on was owned by Kinloss Abbey from the late 12th century, and around 1587 James Dundas, the chantor of Moray, built a tower house on the site, known as Windhills.[2] Around 1653, the estate was acquired by the Brodie family, who demolished the tower house, and in 1710 built a U-plan Georgian mansion with courtyard, to which additional wings were added in the mid-18th century, and which still forms the core part of the house.[2] This house was originally knows as Windyhills, after the tower house it replaced, but when James Brodie of Windyhills died in 1741, the estate passed to a relative, George Brodie, whose family estate of Milton (now Miltonduff) had been sold by his father to the Duffs of Braco; the family renamed the house Milton Brodie.[1]

Between 1835 and 1841, William Robertson performed substantial alterations to the house, reorienting it with the addition of the south facade, and completely filling in the original courtyard.[2][3]

Alterations were made to the house in 1987 by the conservation architect James Dunbar-Nasmith,[4] and in 1989 it was designated a Category A listed building.[1]

• Canmore listing, with gallery of images