Description

1864-1896 extensive stone and brick-built dyeworks and dry cleaning establishment, sited over Perth Lade.

1) Mill Street/Kinnoull Street 1864-5 warehouse, office, press and sewing rooms: L-plan 2-storey and attic red sandstone rubble with yellow freestone dressings. Symmetrical 31-bay elevation to Mill Street, end bays slightly advanced, 3 centre bays pedimented. Return to Kinnoull Street 15 bay, narrower plan coal store and shop at ground, warehouse and London Room over. 3 ground floor segmental arched entrances with cast-iron lintels, one altered to form a shop. 2 windows contain bronze plaques testifying to the establishment of the firm in 1824, remainder 4-pane sash and case. Bracketted eaves and piended slate roofs. Interior: transverse timber beams on cast-iron columns, wrought iron Polonceau truss roof.

2) Kinnoull Street 4-storey and attic 13-bay boilerhouse, dress-making

and fur department by J M Robertson, Dundee, 1896. Stugged and squared red sandstone with crow stepped gables to streets, brick rear. Windows 4-pane sash and case. Modern lead fascia at ground. Loading doors at 1st and 2nd, to Union Street. Interior: ground floor fireproof boilerhouse, upper floors timber on transversesteel joists. Slated queenpost timber roof.

3) Union Street 1871 brick-built fireproof silk cylinder and velvet framing block. 3-storey and mansard attic 13 bay-block with later strawberry harl to street. 10-bay ground floor with door to outer right, 2 windows converted to doors, modern fascia. Windows 16-pane sash and case to upper floors, 9-pane top hoppers at ground. Original swept dormers and ridge ventilators.

Interior: ground floor bell capital columns and cast-iron lintels open out to dyehouse. Upper floors fireproof single row of cast-iron columns carry Hodgekinson beams and mansard gothic traceried cast-iron roof.

Statement of Interest

Established 1824, last part closed 1993. Britain's first dry cleaner pioneered the first synthetic dyes, the parcel post, and was early to adopt (in 1878) both electricity and the telephone. In 1927 there were 7,552 Pullars agents in the UK.

Also known as the North British Dyeworks. Sub branches were at Tulloch (1883), Eastmans (acquired1917) and the Perth Dyeworks of P and P

Campbell (acquired 1919). The gothic cast-iron roof in Union Street is a type only associated with flax and jute spinning mills (8 in Dundee, 1 in Kirkcaldy), and is possibly the product of Dundee engineers such as Pearce Brothers, Thomson Brothers or Robertson and Orchar, although different from all known examples.

External Links

• Historic Environment Scotland Listing
• Wikidata Q17851285

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  Kent: North East and East (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Bedfordshire, Huntingdonshire, and Peterborough (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  London 4: North: North v. 4 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  [(Shropshire)] [By (author) Nikolaus Pevsner] published on (January, 1958)
• 
  Surrey (The Buildings of England) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Development and Design of Heritage Sensitive Sites: Strategies for Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas