Description

David Smart, dated 1900. 3-storey and attic, 3-x 3-bay Victorian Renaissance tenement, with canted single-bay corner, situated on prominent corner site. Red sandstone ashlar. Base course with inset basement lights some with prism glass (see Notes), cill course, band course, moulded cornice to ground, bracketed eaves cornice, balustraded parapet with decorative urns. Round-arched, key-stoned openings to ground, pedimented dormers. Windows to 1st storey set within Corinthian alternately pedimented and segmental-arched aedicules. Part-fluted giant Ionic pilasters rise through 1st and 2nd storeys. Some rusticated pilasters to ground.

FURTHER DESCRIPTION: round-arched entrance doorway to corner with polished granite Ionic-columns to doorpiece with curved pediment with decorative tympanum with carved datestone 1900. Elevation to Kinnoull Street (E) with round-arched, pedimented doorway to far right with panelled timber entrance door.

Predominantly plate glass timber sash and case windows. Truncated polygonal spire to corner with iron brattishing and banded grey and green fishscale pattern slates.

INTERIOR: partially seen (2009). Entrance hall with part-glazed entrance door, with flanking timber panels. Hallway with coloured encaustic-tiled floor, well-staircase with stone stairs and timber barley-sugar balusters and timber banister. Some simple cornicing to rooms; some timber fire surrounds. Offices modernised at ground.

Statement of Interest

This well-detailed corner tenement is a significant addition to the streetscape of the centre of Perth city. The high quality decorative detailing expresses the wealth, power and solidity of the Royal Bank of Scotland, for whom the building was built.

Kinnoull Street as laid out in around 1823, but this section was rebuilt at the end of the 19th century with fine, well-detailed Victorian buildings such as this which reflected the growing wealth and confidence of Perth at the time.

Plans, dated 1899 in the Perth City archive indicate that this building and Nos 6-12 Kinnoull Street (see separate listing) were built for Royal Bank of Scotland.

Prismatic glass was first patented in the United States in 1897, and began to be used in Britain in 1898 to lighten basement areas, as it could direct natural light into dark areas in a focussed way. It was used in pavement lights, basement lights, as here and in shop stallrisers, as at no 10 Kinnoull Street (see separate listing).

David Smart (1824-1914) was a Perth based architect. In his early years, he worked in the office of David Bryce. David Smart designed a large number of buildings in the centre of Perth at the end of the 19th century.

Category changed from C(S) to B in 2010.

List description updated as part of Perth Burgh Resurvey, 2010.

External Links

• Historic Environment Scotland Listing
• Wikidata Q17851317

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

• 
  Berkshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Listed Buildings, Conservation Areas and Monuments
• 
  Staffordshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Maintaining and Repairing Old Houses: A Guide to Conservation, Sustainability and Economy
• 
  Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990
• 
  Hertfordshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)