38 Holburn Street, Aberdeen

This is a terrace of shops and offices built in 1887 by Matthews & Mackenzie and refurbished in the late 20th century. It occupies an L-shaped plan, with four storeys facing Holburn Street and three storeys plus an attic facing Union Grove. The building is constructed of finely finished, tooled coursed grey granite, with darker grey granite used for quoins and detailing.

The Holburn Street elevation is near-symmetrical with nine bays. The ground floor has fine detailing, including pilasters flanking openings and banded quoins. The upper floors feature architraved windows, deeply corniced band courses, and pilastered windows at the fourth floor, topped by a pierced parapet.

The Union Grove elevation is also near-symmetrical with fourteen bays and includes dormer windows in the attic. The ground floor incorporates modern shopfronts and panelled timber doors with letterbox fanlights.

The southeast (Holburn Street) elevation exhibits giant order pilasters to the outer bays of the first and second floors, with stylised Ionic capitals. A curved angle includes three-light canted windows on each floor. Variations in fenestration are seen across the remaining bays.

The northeast (side) elevation is asymmetrical and gabled. The northwest (rear) elevation is irregular with advanced stair bays and attic windows. The southwest (side) elevation is also asymmetrical and gabled, with a single window on each floor.

The building has predominantly two-pane PVCu sash and case windows, a grey slate mansard roof with lead ridges, stone skews with blocked skewputts, and coped gablehead, ridge, and wallhead stacks with circular cans. Modern PVCu rainwater goods are also present. The interiors were not inspected in 2000.

Boundary walls of coped granite rubble enclose the property, with a tooled ashlar niche set into the northwest wall, featuring a round-arched opening.