Description

Thomas Russell; dated 1877; extended to same design 1901; rehabilitated 1985. Extensive 3-storey Scots Baronial tenement on corner site (shop at ground No 26); 22- by 6-bay grouped 3-3-3-3-4-3-3 to Russell Street, 2-2-2 to Mill Street; full-height engaged corner tower. Coursed yellow sandstone ashlar; polished sandstone dressings; painted render at ground to Mill Street. Raised base course; architraved string course (stepped to Russell Street); architraved cill course at 2nd floor; moulded eaves. Single and bipartite windows (basket-arched at ground floor) comprising moulded reveals, chamfered cills; corniced openings at 1st floor; corbelled cills at 2nd floor, recessed lintels. Regularly disposed crowstepped gableheads breaking eaves; surmounting thistle and ball-shaped finials; apex stacks. Elaborate neo-Jacobean strapwork with crests and monograms at 1st floor openings to Mill Street and main 1st floor bays to Russell Street; scrolled panels with embossed dates and initials, "TR-MR, 1877" flanking angle.

S (ENTRANCE) ELEVATION RUSSELL STREET: replacement part-glazed timber doors off-set to right of centre Nos 14 and 16, centred at No 18, off-set to left of centre Nos 20, 22, 24 and 26. Flanking single windows; single windows in remaining bays at ground (bipartite in bay to outer left No 18). Symmetrically-arranged windows at 1st and 2nd floors. Full-height corbelled tower to outer left comprising shop entrance at ground, 3-light bowed windows at 1st and 2nd floors, curved crowstepped gable, flanking corbelled stacks.

W (ENTRANCE) ELEVATION MILL STREET: shop at ground (W elevation No 26 Russell Street); regularly-disposed windows above. Replacement doors at ground (Nos 19, 21, 23); plate-glass fanlights; flanking bipartite windows. Regularly-disposed windows at 1st and 2nd floors.

Predominantly 2-pane timber sash and case windows. Grey slate roof; crowstepped skews; cast-iron barley-sugar downpipes; Gothic rainwater heads. Stop-chamfered polished sandstone wallhead stacks comprising flanking crowsteps, architraved copes, octagonal cans. Regularly disposed coped, rendered ridge stacks; various circular cans.

INTERIORS: not seen 1996.

Statement of Interest

Architect unknown but may have been the Glasgow-based James Hamilton, who with his son John, resided in Rothesay. The building of Russell Street was supervised by a Thomas Russell, one of the directors of the great Glasgow iron foundry, Walter MacFarlane & Co - hence the elaborate use of cast-iron here. Responsible for many development schemes in Rothesay, Russell was also the town?s Member of Parliament. Despite alterations at ground to Mill Street and replacement doors throughout, Russell Street remains an impressive, highly embellished example of the Scots Baronial style. Note the decorative strapwork, crowstepped gables, thistle and ball-shaped finials and barley-sugar downpipes. The 1863 Ordnance Survey map indicates Russell Street as having been built on the site of the "Old Vennell". Lawson notes how Russell transformed "...one of the meanest thoroughfares at the back of the town .... into a wide street by the demolition of old insanitary houses, and the erection of a large block of handsome, well-appointed dwelling houses." Rehabilitated by the Bute Housing Association.

Rothesay is one of Scotland's premier seaside resorts, developed primarily during the second half of the 19th and early 20th centuries, and incorporates an earlier medieval settlement. The town retains a wide range of buildings characteristic of its development as a high status 19th century holiday resort, including a range of fine villas, a Victorian pier and promenade.

The history and development of Rothesay is defined by two major phases. The development of the medieval town, centred on Rothesay Castle, and the later 19th and early 20th century development of the town as a seaside resort. Buildings from this later development, reflect the wealth of the town during its heyday as a tourist destination, and include a range of domestic and commercial architecture of a scale sometimes found in larger burghs. Both the 19th and early 20th century growth of the town, with a particular flourish during the inter-war period, included areas of reclaimed foreshore, particularly along the coast to the east of the town and around the pier and pleasure gardens.

(List description revised as part of Rothesay listing review 2010-11).

External Links

• Historic Environment Scotland Listing
• Wikidata Q17775111

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.

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