Former Maltings, Ardmore Distillery

Former Maltings, Ardmore Distillery

Buildings that form part of a large whisky distillery designed by Charles C Doig and established in 1898 for William Teacher & Sons. The maltings, kiln house, mill room and warehouses 1 and 2 date from 1898 to before 1928. They are little-altered components of a wider complex that was extensively modified and extended in the later 20th century.

The late 19th and early 20th century buildings are constructed predominantly of squared coursed granite rubble with tooled margins and long and short quoins. The masonry is slaistered, with mortar overlapping the stone blocks around the joints. The roofs are predominantly of pitched slate with stone skews and skewputts, though some buildings have sheet cladding. There are several ornamental hoppers, mostly of cast iron, to the rainwater goods, particularly to the maltings and warehouses.

The north section of the site has a long range of buildings laid out along the south side of the railway track. At the east end stands the triple gable former maltings. Adjoining this to the northwest is a square plan kiln house with a pyramidal roof surmounted by a louvered pagoda cupola with a ball finial. To the west lies the former mill room, a stone building with a pitched, slated roof aligned east to west.

The former maltings is 2 storeys and comprises 3 adjoining ranges with gables to north and south. The west and central ranges date from 1898, whilst the east range was added before 1928. The east elevation has 13 bays divided by slim buttresses. A forestair leads up to a timber-boarded door in a dormer-headed opening that breaks the eaves at the 4th bay. There are predominantly 12-pane timber windows to the ground floor, with timber-louvred openings to the 1st floor and small rooflights. Large door openings appear at the far left and right (the latter is modern). The south elevation features large sliding timber-boarded doors to the left sides of the 3rd and 5th bays. The windows are predominantly 12-pane glazing in fixed timber frames, with 4-pane glazing to 2 bays to the left at ground floor. The north elevation is similar to the south, though windows have been predominantly blocked at ground floor level, with 2-pane glazing to the 1st floor. A projecting loading platform stands to the left.

The interior of the former maltings contains cast iron supporting columns to the ground and first floors, with steel beams, timber floors and a kingpost roof. The west part of the building has waist-high concrete divisions that were part of Saladin boxes, containers in which malt could be turned by vertical screws.

The former malt kiln dates from 1898. It has no openings to the north and is abutted by a modern metal-clad structure to the south.

The former mill room building to the west also dates to 1898. It is 3 bays to the north elevation, with a door opening to the left and two 16-pane timber windows in fixed timber frames with central mullions. The mill room contains a single cylinder horizontal steam engine by G Chrystal of St Johns Foundry, Perth.

Warehouses 1 and 2 are located across an access road to the south of the maltings. Warehouse 1 dates from 1898 and Warehouse 2 was added before 1928. Both have 4 gables each. To the north, every gable end has a central 2-leaf timber-boarded door flanked by windows to the ground floor and a single window above. The south elevation has 3 windows to the ground floor with a single window above each gable. The interiors have rammed earth and ash floors. These are dunnage warehouses, in which barrels are stacked and kept in position using loose timber.