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Latitude: 54.9872 / 54°59'13"N
Longitude: -3.2592 / 3°15'33"W
OS Eastings: 319520
OS Northings: 566571
OS Grid: NY195665
Mapcode National: GBR 5BPS.50
Mapcode Global: WH6Y6.XX53
Plus Code: 9C6RXPPR+V8
Entry Name: Argyle House, 121 High Street
Listing Name: 121 High Street, Argyle House
Listing Date: 14 December 2004
Category: B
Source: Historic Scotland
Source ID: 397867
Historic Scotland Designation Reference: LB50032
Building Class: Cultural
Also known as: 121 High Street, Argyle House
ID on this website: 200397867
Location: Annan
County: Dumfries and Galloway
Town: Annan
Electoral Ward: Annandale South
Traditional County: Dumfriesshire
Tagged with: Building
Alexander Tweedie (but see Notes), 1908. 3-bay, 2-Storey and attic free Renaissance style shop on corner site with curved corner, lead-domed turret rising from 1st floor, glazed shop front to High Street, and pedimented dormers. Polished red sandstone with polished pink granite base course and margins to shop. Fascia with small cornice below and deep cornice above; corniced cill course; deep, blocked eaves cornice; discontinuous parapet between dormers with corniced cope; deep eaves cornice with paired brackets to turret. Tripartite windows to 1st floor with roll-moulded stone mullions and architraves; cornices above with bracketed pediments over central lights. Bipartite dormers with finialed segmental pediments.
NORTH (PRINCIPAL) ELEVATION: curved central entrance with recessed glazed timber door; scrolled open pediment above; mosaic floor to entrance with Greek Key border, ARGYLE HOUSE in curved letters and thistle motif. Timber and plate glass shop front at ground; 2 tripartite windows at 1st floor; 2 dormers to attic. Circular turret rising from 1st floor at corner, corbelled to octagonal at 2nd floor; tripartite window at 1st floor with ARGYLE HOUSE in painted letters above; square windows with projecting cills to 2nd floor.
WEST (MURRAY STREET) ELEVATION: 2-leaf timber panelled door at ground to right; window to centre. Tripartite and single corniced window to 1st floor; bipartite dormer at attic to left; single dormer with triangular pediment to right.
Plate glass in timber casements with small-pane glazing in fixed lights above. Corniced stacks rising from S and E elevations. Graded grey slate. Cast-iron rainwater goods with decorative hoppers.
Located on prominent corner site at junction with Murray street. Built as a drapers shop in 1908 for J E McClean. The Dean of Guild drawings show that the building hardly changed externally since it was built: only the shop door is slightly different, and the dome has lost its finial. It is very much in the style of FJ Carruthers who built several other buildings in Annan; in particular, the Corner House Hotel has very similar detailing. SCRAN gives the architect as Alexander Tweedie. Nothing is written about this architect, but there was an architect called James Irving Tweedie (born 1881) who had just started practising in Annan at this time and had been articled to F J Carruthers between 1897 and 1902 (Corner House Hotel was built in 1900). Alexander Tweedie may have been a brother of James, but it seems more likely that the name has been copied wrongly and that this is actually an early work of James Irving Tweedie.
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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