1 and 3 Alma Place and 17 High Street, Laurencekirk

1 and 3 Alma Place and 17 High Street, Laurencekirk

This corner tenement was built in the early 19th century, probably around 1820. It is a two-storey and attic building of six bays with a shop at ground floor level and a distinctive bowed corner. The structure is constructed from squared, coursed sandstone blocks with cherry-caulking and polished ashlar margins and quoins. A band course runs above the ground floor and an eaves course marks the wallhead. The bowed corner is topped with a decorative pediment.

On the southwest elevation facing Alma Place, a pair of four-panelled timber entrance doors with bipartite fanlights and pilastered surrounds provides access. A gable breaks the wallhead with a small window in the apex and a chimney stack above. Two polygonal-roofed, canted dormer windows flank this gable. The bowed corner features a replacement uPVC and glazed entrance door with fanlight above, flanked by slightly larger ground floor windows than those elsewhere. The entrance and its flanking windows have cornices supported on console brackets. A decorative metal bracket for shop signage projects above the entrance.

The glazing is mixed in pattern and material. Ground floor windows are plate glass in timber frames. First floor windows have a 12-pane glazing pattern in timber sash and case frames. The piended roof is slated with straight ashlar skews and block skewputts. Two tapered chimney stacks rise from the roof. Cast iron guttering runs around the building.

The interior contains 19th century decorative features including timber panelled doors with moulded architraves, a timber staircase with decorative cast iron balusters, plain and moulded cornicing, and ceiling roses. Timber window shutters are fitted to the first floor windows. The interior of 17 High Street has a decorative cornice.

The village of Laurencekirk was laid out on a linear plan in 1765 and became a burgh of barony in 1779. Buildings along the High Street were among the town's earliest structures. A building at the corner of High Street and what is now Alma Place appears on James Robertson's topographical map of 1822 and John Thomson's map of 1832. This property is shown in detail on the 1st Edition Ordnance Survey map (surveyed 1864, published 1894), and its footprint has remained substantially unchanged since then.

During the 19th century, the ground floor corner unit at 17 High Street operated as a chemist's dispensary shop from at least 1878 onwards and continued as a chemist through most of the 20th century until around the 1980s. The property at 1 Alma Place was used as accommodation attached to the chemist's business. 3 Alma Place served at one time as a chemist store. Since around 2010, 17 High Street has been used as an office. 1 Alma Place comprises a flat occupying the first floor and attic. 3 Alma Place was most recently a ground floor retail space and remains unoccupied.