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Summary

Description

John M Aitken 1892. 2-storey and attic over concealed basement asymmetrical Scots Baronial bank on corner site with close to N. Painted ashlar principal floor, harl-pointed random rubble walls above with cement and droved ashlar dressings and details. Frieze with string and band courses over shopfront. Projecting cills at windows.

S (BURN?S WALK) ELEVATION: 3-bay asymmetrical elevation; 6-panel 2-leaf timber entrance door with plate glass fanlight centred at principal floor and advanced in doorpiece with bracketted cornice above, advanced at centre with segmental pediment centred above, flanking narrow windows. Shop windows in flanking bays. Bipartite windows at 1st floor with pointed-arched lintels to window at left, single window with matching lintel centred in crowstepped and ball-finialled gable above. Chimney-gable over bays to right, 7-flue stugged sandstone apex stack, coped with circular cans, circular turret corbelled out at SE corner with blind arrowslits, bracketted and corniced frieze with crenellated parapet above.

W (COMMERCIAL STREET) ELEVATION: 3-bay near-symmetrical elevation; 6-panel 2-leaf door with 2-pane fanlight at principal floor in bay to left, shop windows in bays to right. Bipartite window in bay centred at 1st floor, flanking windows, single window in crowstepped and ball-finialled gable breaking eaves at centre. Circular turret corbelled out SW corner, frieze and cornice at eaves with conical fish-scale slated roof surmounted by wrought-iron weathervane finial.

N ELEVATION: gabled bay to outer right; blank at principal floor, single narrow window centred at 1st floor, crowstepped gable with corniced 4-flue stugged sandstone apex stack. Modern alterations and finishes in bays to left.

E (ESPLANADE) ELEVATION: modern 2-storey addition obscuring principal and 1st floors, gable at attic in bay to left with single window with pointed-arched lintel.

Modern glazing throughout, purple-grey slate roof, stugged droved ashlar skew copes and crowsteps.

Statement of Special Interest

Laurenson & Co were drapers at these premises until they were bought by the North of Scotland Bank in 1925. The lively skyline of this building makes a valuable contribution to the streetscape in this part of Commercial Street, and is prominent when the building is viewed along Burn?s Walk from the Esplanade. The addition to the E, however, is out of character and currently detrimental to this view. Its removal would re-establish the buildings? contribution to the skyline of the town, adding to the Baronial elements of Leask?s and the Grand Hotel that are striking features of the view from the harbour.

References

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