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Summary

Description

John Walker Smart, dated 1907. Single-storey, 5-bay, commercial offices and workshop for W D Peddie Iron and Steel Merchants occupying prominent corner site with canted entrance bay and unusual L-plan chimney stack with cast-iron ornamental railing detail to corner angle. Red sandstone ashlar with moulded dressings. Base course, moulded cornice and coped parapet.

CORNER OFFICE: Recessed timber panel door to canted corner bay; date panel and round-arched pediment above. Flanked by pair of quatrepartite basket-arched windows with stone mullions, high-set transoms and leaded upper-lights.

FLANKING WORKSHOP SECTIONS: 4-bay to High Street with timber astragals to upper part of large plate glass windows; dentils to upper frames. Plain pilasters divide bays rising to swept-blocking between bays at parapet.

Grey slate. L-plan chimney stack with cast-iron ornamental railing detail to corner angle.

INTERIOR: principal office area with timber panelling and partitioning with panelled door, fireplace and fitted units. Mosaic floor tiles; flower motif plaster cornicing. Timber panelling to toilet to left of office. Polished grey brick walls with red sandstone dressings to workshops. Cast-iron spiral staircase with barley-twist balustrades. Signage. Cobbled set floor with machine tracks to centre flanked by recessed inspection pits.

Statement of Special Interest

No 284 High Street is an increasingly rare survival of a small-scale workshop, office and shop, still in use by the founding company, W D Peddie of Perth - Iron and Steel Merchants (formerly corn merchants). The interior is of particular note with high quality timber fittings predominantly intact and it remains substantially unaltered both internally and externally. The mirrored elevations to the High Street and Lickley Street create a confident and uniform streetscape presence. Built at a cost of £6,500 this is a fine example of a city centre commercial and industrial building.

John Walker Smart (1872-1941) was based at York Place, Perth and was articled to the family firm of architects in 1888. He gained wider experience working with other notable architectural practices in Scotland's cities, including Kinnear & Peddie in Edinburgh, McLuckie & Walker in Stirling and T M Cappon in Dundee in 1892, 1893 and 1894 respectively. He emigrated to Canada in 1910 and moved to California in the 1920s.

The Dean of Guild plans at Perth City Archives show an additional double door entrance to the work shop fronting the High Street, which would have provided a further level of symmetry to the composition. The Peddie Building was part of a larger plan which included the existing adjoining red sandstone tenement block to the West.

References

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