New boarders must have audibly gulped as their parents’ cars crested the rising drive and Crawfordton School, near Moniaive, came into sight for the first time. The three-storey sandstone building is stout and square and, with its four-storey tower, resembles a medieval keep. Its footprint might be compact, but its impression is huge.

Crawfordton has been impressing parents and intimidating their offspring since 1941, when pupils were evacuated from the Belmont School in East Renfrewshire. But, because of falling rolls, poor inspection reports and financial difficulties, the school — in its most recent incarnation as Cademuir International School — closed last summer.

The B-listed house, designed by Peddie & Kinnear, one of Scotland’s most prolific firms of architects, was built in 1865, and is on the market for £1.3m. The sale includes 20 acres of woodland and gardens, a church and a large lodge. A total renovation of the house and gardens is likely to cost a further £1m.

Originally envisaged as a grand residence for a Colonel George Walker, it attempted to satisfy the Victorian fantasy of a comfortable castle. It was this style of architecture — a mixture of pepper-pot turrets, crenellated battlements, stepped gables and corbels, impractical balconies and oriel windows — that established Peddie & Kinnear as the architectural firm of choice at the time.

Known as “Scottish baronial”, the style delivers both romance and gravitas in equal measure, borrowing from the castles and keeps of the Scottish renaissance era. It captured the imagination of Victorian Scotland, and there was hardly a burgh in the country that did not commission a Peddie & Kinnear building.

In Edinburgh alone the company designed about 30 buildings — including the Caledonian Hotel at the west end of Princes Street, the Binns department store (now House of Fraser), and Cockburn Street, which links the High Street with Waverly Station.

It also designed the Morgan Academy in Dundee and the Town House in Aberdeen. Indeed, the inside of Crawfordton House gives the immediate impression of a public building, so redolent is it of the old town halls and libraries throughout the country.

The main staircase leads directly to the first floor and the reception rooms, bypassing the servants’ quarters and kitchens on the ground floor. The original fireplaces, the carved-oak balustrade and the intricate cornice work are all in near-perfect condition, and the cosy library, with its oak and brass fire surround, appears untouched. In every room the windows are oversized so light floods in.

The bathrooms are mostly set in the round tower house and retain many of their original features — so no matter how comfortable they were considered in Victorian times, they still induce a shiver.

On the upper floors there is a warren of corridors that lead to seemingly endless dormitories. The rooms here are dismal, and notices detailing the schools’ daily routine remain on the walls. These rooms would have been large and sumptuous bedrooms, and when they were divided into smaller dormitories, great care was taken to preserve the original features.

Overall, the house appears huge — it is being marketed as having 22 reception rooms and 32 bedrooms. However, Shaun Castle, the agent handling the sale, believes that once the partitions have been removed, it will once again be a rather intimate and easily managable 12-room residence.

“There has been interest from American buyers looking for a site for a new cosmetic surgery clinic, while others are looking at converting it into a resort hotel or spa. There has been talk of converting it to luxury flats, but I think it is more likely that it will return to being a grand residence,” says Castle.

The classroom wings — which were built in the 1960s — are equally dismal, but they could be easily detached and demolished. The other outbuildings, which include an art studio, squash courts and a gym hall, would also most likely require demolition.

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