The Buildings at Risk Register (BARR) for Scotland was set up by the Scottish Civic Trust in 1990 to raise awareness of listed buildings or buildings in conservation areas that were empty and falling into disrepair. The Register eventually passed into the custodianship of Historic Environment Scotland in 2015, ultimately recording around forty properties of concern in Dundee.
In September 2024, following a detailed consultancy report, HES announced that management of the BARR would be paused to allow its future form to be reviewed. You can read the full details here, while the Register may still be viewed here.
Despite the current absence of an active national database, Dundee Civic Trust shall continue to draw attention to those buildings in the city seen to be ‘at risk’. They may be of historical significance, exemplify a particular architectural style or tradition, reflect shared memories or offer exciting and sustainable redevelopment opportunities. Collectively, they make an important contribution to Dundee’s urban landscape, helping to shape its unique identity. It is essential, therefore, that they are maintained well and brought into positive use.
The Trust works to raise the profile of such buildings and supports appropriate regeneration proposals.
Examples
Churches at Risk
Societal changes since the middle of last century have resulted in many former church buildings becoming redundant. In some cases, conversion to residential or business use has been successfully undertaken. Nonetheless, there is still a series of ‘at risk’ ecclesiastical buildings in the city, including the following examples.
Victoria Street (Category B listed)
Opened on 5 September 1875 as a United Presbyterian church, it was designed by Dundee architects Edward & Robertson to seat 860 worshippers at a cost of £8,500. It sits at the junction of Victoria Street and Brown Constable Street.
Description: Broad piend-roofed two storey box faced with badly weathered stugged ashlar, the windows round-headed. At the south front, a four bay centrepiece under a pediment, its tympanum containing a dummy oculus. Console-keystoned entrance at the west end. Within the parapet above rises a square belfry, each face panelled with a giant overarch springing from corner pilasters and containing a two-light opening under a dummy oculus. The belfry’s wallhead is finished with a bracketed cornice and circle-pierced parapet, its corners topped by obelisks. In the west elevation paired round-headed windows in giant shouldered overarches. Italianate hall to the south-east.
In 1900 it became a United Free church and then in 1929, following the union of the Church of Scotland and the United Free Church, was named Victoria Street. After a further union with Maryfield Church in 1965, the building was sold to the Boys’ Brigade as their battalion centre. Recently the Boys’ Brigade moved out and it is now for let.
Wishart Memorial (Category B listed)
Opened on 12 September 1901, this was the successor church to the Wishart Church in the Cowgate and was a United Free church, designed under Dundee architect Thomas Martin Cappon, probably by his senior assistant, William Gillespie Lamond. It is located in King Street north-east of the East Marketgait dual carriageway.
Description: Free Perpendicular, built of hammer-dressed grey Burghmuirhead stone with a liberal admixture of red Dumfriesshire
sandstone dressings. In the front north gable a huge window divided by a transom into two stages, the tracery elaborate but disciplined; ogee-arched hoodmould. North east tower, its face with an entrance like that of the gable but the surround’s head is carved with a relief portrait of the 16th century Protestant reformer and martyr, George Wishart, in a multi-foil panel set with thistles, the entrance’s hoodmould segmented-arched with crocketed pinnacles at the ends. Immediately above the entrance a tripartite low window. On the nave roof an Art Nouveau cupola with a slender spirelet. A suite of three halls below.
After the 1929 national union it became the Wishart Memorial. With the local union of 1975 the congregation moved to Old St Paul’s and St David’s (now the Hot Chocolate Trust) and subsequently in 1978 to the Steeple church. The Wishart Memorial was given to Dundee Cyrenians to become the Wishart Centre for recovering alcoholics. It was latterly used as a karate gym, but now seems unused.
Meadowside St Paul’s (Category B listed; Conservation Area)
Opened on 12 December 1852 as Free St Paul’s, this church was designed by Charles Wilson, architect of Glasgow, who was also the designer of the terraces overlooking Kelvingrove Park there. It is a distinctive feature of the Nethergate next to the South Marketgait ring road.
Description: Tall and gothic with hoodmoulded lancet windows. Cruciform, with an unaisled nave, full height transepts and a minimally projecting south chancel, all built of stugged rough ashlar. Projecting boldly from the pinnacled front gable and set between lean-to porches is the dominant steeple. In the front of its buttressed tower, the steeply gableted entrance. Pairs of very tall openings at the belfry stage. Between these further gableted openings rise through the arcading-corbelled eaves. Octagonal stone spire. Flanking the porches either side of the steeple are flat-roofed single storey pavilions designed in 1936 by Wm Patrick & Co., architects Dundee, as printers’ offices. William Patrick was the elder brother of James Mackintosh Patrick, the renowned painter. To the south of the church a halls complex designed by Reid & Greig, architects Dundee, (now LJRH), in 1990.
It originated from the dual nature of the Mariners’ Church in Reform Street which was both a seamen’s mission and a free church of worshippers. The building of St Paul’s separated those functions. It became Meadowside St Paul’s in 1981, following many unions over the years. It is still owned by the Church of Scotland but has closed for worship and its future is uncertain.
Old General Post Office, 4 Meadowside (Category B listed; Conservation Area)
The ‘B’ listed old GPO building sits impressively on the corner of Meadowside and Constitution Road. It was built in the flamboyant Franco-Italian Renaissance style between 1895 and 1898 and designed by Walter Wood Robertson, the principal architect in Scotland for HM Office of Works.
It comprises three storeys and an attic, all faced with polished ashlar, and banded at the very tall ground floor which housed the public offices. At the centre of the wallhead balustrade is a recess which contains the Royal Coat of Arms; and above the centrepiece’s corner pilasters are statues of angelic figures. One of which is holding a post-horn and a letter and the other a thunderbolt (the emblem of electricity), symbolising the postal and telegraph departments. The north elevation on Euclid Street, originally containing only one bay, was extended in 1921-2 in red sandstone. A recess on Meadowside at ground floor level originally housed the Dundee & District Post Office World War 1 Memorial, now relocated to Dundee East Delivery Office.
Walter Wood Robertson was born in Elie in 1845 and studied at Edinburgh College of Art while being articled to John Chesser in Edinburgh. He worked in Edinburgh and Manchester and then moved to London in 1871, joining the Office of Works. In 1877 he was appointed principal architect and surveyor for Scotland. Over a period of more than twenty five years he was responsible for a wide range of public buildings, including the Inland Revenue offices and the Royal Observatory in Edinburgh; post offices in Glasgow, Inverness, Perth, Dunfermline, Greenock and elsewhere across the country; and the South African war memorial in Dunfermline Abbey. He died in Edinburgh in 1907.
As part of economy measures the Post Office closed the main part of the building in early 2000, retaining only a small modernised outlet which has subsequently become a shop. The Post Office relocated to Whitehall Street. The building was bought by the High School of Dundee with ambitious plans for an Arts Centre with supporting school facilities, designed by Glasgow architects Page\Park in 2016. These did not come to fruition and the building was put up for sale again. In March 2023 a planning application was submitted for its conversion into residential flats but this has not proceeded and the building still appears to be for sale.
Robertson’s Whisky Bond, 38-40 Seagate (Category B listed; Conservation Area)
Dominatin
g the north-western elevation of the Seagate, Robertson’s Bond was designed by the Dundee architect David William Baxter whilst working for Alexander Johnston. It was built in 1897 in the Jacobethan style as a whisky manufacturing plant or bond for John Robertson & Co, proprietors of the famous ‘Yellow Label’ brand.
A four storey, basement and attic structure with a red ashlar-fronted facade and slate roof, it is nearly symmetrical except for the pend on the left side. The entrance bays feature arched entrances, one with heavy consoles, strapwork and urn decoration.
The upper floors feature three light mullioned and transomed windows, framed by slim ogee-capped turrets which cant out from the first floor.
Notable features include the the cill courses on the first and third floors, a main corbelled cornice and a crenellated parapet with shaped and crow stepped gable, oculi and ball finials.
John Robertson & Son was established in 1827 and in 1896 was incorporated as a limited company, acquiring both the existing business as wine and spirit merchants in Seagate and Candle Lane and ground at Coleburn, Elgin, for a distillery from William Brown Robertson, also a wine and spirit merchant in Dundee.
In 1906 the Candle Lane Bond was badly affected by the huge fire at the nearby Watson’s Bond.
The Coleburn Distillery was subsequently built and operated until 1915, when it was sold to the Clynelish Distilling Co. In 1966 the company changed its name to William Sanderson & Son Ltd and still operates today.
After its whisky bond days, from 1980 the Seagate building was the home of Dundee Printmakers’ Workshop until it moved to DCA in 1999.
The ground floor and basement are currently operating commercially, but the four floors above have been the subject of a number of schemes. It was recently up for auction late last year, with planning permission for conversion into 27 flats including Listed Building Consent and building warrant in place.
Broughty Ferry Station (Category A listed; Conservation Area)
Broughty Ferry is loosely described as the oldest operational railway station in Scotland, which is fundamentally true. Although Monifieth and Carnoustie stations also date from the opening of the Dundee & Arbroath Railway in 1838, they later underwent considerable alterations not applied at Broughty Ferry, where the original station buildings are still an integral part of the layout.
These buildings have, however, been largely unused since the station became unstaffed in 1985. At that time British Rail intended to send in the bulldozers; but this was thwarted when the complex received Category B listed status (upgraded to Category A in 1991). By the mid-1990s the station saw few train services and had fallen into a state of vandalised dereliction.
Under its station regeneration programme, privatised Railtrack undertook a restoration project around 2000. The redundant signal box and covered footbridge were taken down and the station was broadly returned to its original appearance from 1838. Following the collapse of Railtrack two years later, that company’s successor Network Rail obtained consent to make further alterations, enclosing part of the Up platform under the canopy (to provide a business space) and building a rather curious replica of the old signal box on the opposite side from its original position.
The Civic Trust awarded a Commendation in 2014 for this work. Many years later, we are dismayed to note that the station complex remains unoccupied. It is being marketed for tenancy under the ScotRail Station Spaces initiative, but the sign on Gray Street advertising this fact has been destroyed by vandalism and not replaced. Meanwhile the signs of neglect are there, with vegetation beginning to sprout and faulty roof drainage causing rainwater to discharge down the walls.
The train service to Broughty Ferry has now been revitalised. Surely, with a little commitment from the rail authorities, a new use can be found for this property.
East Graving Dock Pump House (Category B listed)
This single storey, five bay gabled pump house sits alongside the 500 foot long East Graving Dock.
Built in 1869 as th
e port expanded eastwards, it was designed by harbour engineer David Cunningham, with Charles Ower (Senior) as consulting engineer.
It features a central arched doorway and end gables with skewputts and ball finials. The slate roof has large skylights and two conical-capped ventilators to the east over the basement pumps.
The pumps were originally steam powered, probably by vertical marine engines. The west end of the pump house probably housed the boilers. The chimney and two 5-ton cranes have been demolished.
It is currently owned by Forth Ports, but no maintenance appears to have taken place in recent years.
The East Graving Dock has been identified as the location for the refurbished HMS ‘Unicorn’, although there is no information about the role of the pump house in the proposed development.
Rescued
Panmure Villa (latterly Armitstead House) and Lodge, Monifieth Road (lodge Category C listed; Conservation Area)
Originally one of the villas belonging to the Broughty Ferry manufacturing class, Panmure Villa was renamed around 1930 after being purchased by the Trustees of Lord Armitstead for conversion to a children’s convalescent home. Latterly used as the Armitstead Child Development Centre by NHS Tayside, the premises fell into a derelict state after abandonment (circa 2010), when the facility was relocated to King’s Cross Hospital.
As is often the case, hopes that the former house and its listed lodge would be restored involved one false start and the passage of several years before conversion back to domestic use took place. Today the villa, lodge and gate piers form part of a townhouse and apartment development by H&H Properties, with views across the Tay.