38-40 Sinclair Street, Helensburgh

38-40 Sinclair Street, Helensburgh

This Art Nouveau red sandstone building was designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh for the architectural practice John Honeyman and Keppie in 1894-95, originally serving as the Helensburgh and Gareloch Conservative Club. It occupies a prominent position on one of Helensburgh's main streets. The building is Grade A listed.

The structure comprises a narrow three-storey, three-bay frontage with a deep rectangular plan, extending to a two-storey section at the rear that houses the main hall at first floor level. The principal west elevation is highly decorative but has undergone later alterations to the ground floor shop fronts.

The main entrance to the upper floors is positioned at the far left and features a round-arched doorway with pilasters topped by moulded consoles bearing cartouche-style decoration. Two leaf-panelled doors with small squared glazed panes (now blocked) lead through to a multi-pane semi-circular fanlight set in the pediment. The ground floor shop premises to the right is a late 20th-century plate glass installation.

The upper floors are distinguished by asymmetrical shallow canted bays to each side, each with individual stone details. The left side first floor contains a full-height canted bay with a five-light mullioned window topped by round arches that narrow to three small square stained glass windows. Small round colonnettes with Art Nouveau female heads at their bases extend upward to enclose the second floor tripartite window, which features a decorative scrolled cill and an ornately carved tree set on the breaking eaves parapet. The right side is flush at first floor level, displaying a tripartite mullioned and transomed window with three small squared stained glass windows positioned above three tall arched windows. A shallow canted corbelled section rises above this, containing a single window enclosed by colonnettes with Art Nouveau female heads and foliate mouldings. At the centre of the elevation sits an arched niche containing a statue of St Andrew, the crest of the Conservative Club, at first floor level, with a pierced tracery panel positioned at the parapet above.

The first floor windows are plate glass with fixed stained glass panels above. The second floor has sash and case windows with a six-over-one pane glazing pattern. The stair window contains lead-pane glazing (not seen in 2019). Pitched slate roofs are punctuated by large glazed rooflights, with cast-iron rainwater goods and red sandstone corniced end chimney stacks completing the external fabric.

The interior was inspected in 1992, with photographs from 2012 documenting the arrangement. A long wide stair leads to the first floor to access the main hall at the rear. A turned stair with wrought iron bannisters, timber handrail and stylised squared newel posts ascends to the second floor accommodation. The main hall features timber panelling and cornice with a semi-circular arched chimneypiece incorporating a rusticated keystone and Glasgow-style moulding to the overmantel. Glazed panels enclose an Art Nouveau-style braced collar roof. The second floor contains a timber-panelled former billiard room with chimneypieces at the end walls and glazed panels to a braced collar roof. Smaller service rooms to the rear retain original Art Nouveau fireplaces. The interior appears to have undergone alterations to form residential accommodation as of 2019.