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Summary

Description

John McLachlan, 1892; TP Marwick, 1898 and 1914; T Waller Marwick, 1937. 4-storey former department store, now hotel, bars and restaurant, and 3-storey, 3-bay Modernist department store (in process of being converted into hotel, 1999).

CENTRAL BLOCK TO BREAD STREET: 5-bays to left by John McLachlan, 1892, exactly duplicated to right by TP Marwick, 1898. 10-bay palazzo-style department store. Polished ashlar. Moulded cill course to each level; mutuled cornice. Plate glass to each bay at ground floor, separated by cast-iron pilasters (ground floor arrangement altered - see Notes). Arcaded windows to 1st floor (2-light with lunette above) with prominent keystones, flanked by Doric pilasters (coupled in outer bays). Blocked jambs to corniced bipartite windows at 2nd floor. Smaller bipartites to 3rd floor with dividing and flanking Doric columnar mullions. Modern dormers to attic.

V-SHAPED BLOCK TO BREAD STREET AND EAST FOUNTAINBRIDGE: TP Marwick, 1914. 4 stories and attic Beaux Arts/Baroque department store. 5-bay elevation to Bread Street. Polished cream ashlar sandstone, channelled to outer bays. Moulded cill course at 2nd floor; mutuled cornice; ashlar parapet. 2-storey glazed openings at ground and 1st floors to 3 centre bays, framed in red granite and channelled ashlar architraves. Windows at 3rd and 4th floors grouped 3 and 3 in recessed panels flanked by coupled Doric pilasters; entablature supported on decorative brackets between windows. Wide full-height corniced glazed entrances in projecting outer bays, framed in red granite; Diocletian windows to 1st floors with prominent keystones; windows to 2nd and 3rd floors grouped 2 and 2 in recessed panels with cornices on brackets below. Windows with swept reveals in segmental-headed decorative dormerheads to 3 centre bays at attic; bipartite windows in decorative dormerheads (scrolled to sides) to outer bays at attic. Elevation to East Fountainbridge identical to that to Bread Street, but only 2 bays to centre, and 2 narrow asymmetrical bays to left: polished ashlar; plain eaves cornice; service entrance in channelled arched surround with Diocletian window above; 2 stone-mullioned windows above, 4 to right bay, lighting stair; decorative wrought-iron grilles to ground floor windows.

BOWED CORNER BLOCK: moulded eaves band at ground; cill course at 2nd, dentilled cornice at 3rd. Channelled ashlar above deep red granite base course; channelled to 1st, polished ashlar to 2nd, 3rd and 4th. Segmental-headed openings to 1st, swept reveals to 2nd; vertically paired windows between coupled giant Doric columns at 3rd and 4th; Key-blocked segmental-headed windows to drum; ribbed copper dome.

28 AND 30 BREAD STREET: TW Marwick, 1937. 3-storey, 3-bay Modernist former furniture showroom. Steel frame, precast concrete floors.

N (BREAD STREET) ELEVATION: plate glass shop front to ground floor; 3 2-leaf glazed doors (ground floor arrangement altered - see Notes). 3-storey curtain wall of glass above ground floor, subdivided by bronze astragals, cantilevered out from grid of concrete members and framed in polished granite (see Notes). Partitions behind glass now conceal former sales floors etc.

S (REAR) ELEVATION: brick walls to older blocks, some white glazed tiles. Projecting rear elevation of 1937 TW Marwick block to left: concrete; continuous glazing to each sales floor; 4-storey window with astragals lights stair tower to left.

Statement of Special Interest

Important not only as a key building on an important site, but also as the principal department store of St Cuthbert's Co-operative Association, housing drapery, tailoring, dressmaking, millinery, furniture, upholstery, crockery, hardware, jewellery, grocery, drugs and paint departments, and a waitress service Tea Room.

The 1937 TW Marwick block has the first glass curtain-wall to be built in Scotland. Designed by David Harvey and Philip McManus in the office of TP Marwick and Son as the Co-operative's furniture showroom, the building was intended to maximise the light on a narrow, north-facing site, and to draw the eye when illuminated at night. It was originally floodlit from the soffit of the canopy at the gantry rail. Although altered in places (the ground floors of both the 1892/98 block and the 1937 block have been altered, the canopy on which the lettering 'St Cuthbert's Co-operative Association Ltd' was mounted is missing, and the framing of the glass curtain wall seems to have been ashlar rather than polished granite) this is still a historically important and stylish building. The TW Marwick (1937) block is currently in the process of being altered to become part of the Point Hotel.

References

Bibliography

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