Oban Distillery

Oban Distillery

Established in 1794, Oban Distillery comprises an extensive range of buildings arranged around courtyards on its site, including an office building, warehouses, and production facilities.

The office building, probably designed by George Woulfe Brenan in 1894, sits at the east end of Stafford Street. It is a three-bay, three-storey near-symmetrical structure with residential accommodation on the third floor. The principal (west) front is constructed of bull-faced, squared and snecked grey granite with yellow polished sandstone ashlar dressings. The side elevations are coursed rubble, while the rear is painted brick with stugged ashlar dressings. The building features quoins to window surrounds and at corners, a string course at first floor level, and a cornice with blocking course topped by terminal urns. Windows have chamfered arrises. The ground floor has a central entrance door with a vaulted pend to the right. The first floor contains tripartite windows with a corbelled oriel to the centre bay and a large fluted bracket below. The second floor has bipartite windows. Sash and case windows throughout have four-pane upper sashes and plate glass lower sashes, except for a four-pane window at ground floor. The rear elevation has plate glass timber windows except for modern glazing at second floor. Modern entrance doors and vertically-boarded timber doors serve the pend openings, with vertically-boarded sliding doors within. The roof is grey slate with a piended profile, gablets to the end elevations with apex stacks, and decorative square cans with panels and dentils.

The Old Malt Barns 1 and 2, and the Old Malt Kiln Area form a double-pile range of early nineteenth-century four-storey buildings extending across the western extent of the site. The eleven-bay north elevation borders Stafford Street and is constructed of bull-faced, squared and snecked grey granite. Elsewhere, walls are rubble with stugged dressings and black-painted quoins to openings. The south elevation of Barn 2 projects slightly forward. Both barns have grey slate piended roofs. The Old Malt Kiln Area comprises a lean-to structure along the south wall of Barn 2 with a modern monopitch roof and a random rubble west wall. Vertically-boarded timber shutters with two-pane windows above are located on the west and north elevations, with diagonally-boarded timber doors facing Stafford Street. Timber floors are supported on cast-iron columns and beams.

Disused Warehouse 3 is a three-storey building with four widely spaced bays, connected to the rear (east) of the office building. It has random rubble walls with slit windows, except for windows with iron bars at the first bay and ground floor to the left of bay 4. Vertically-boarded two-leaf timber doors with external metal hinges provide access. The piended roof has modern corrugated cladding, with cast-iron gutters and downpipes. Cast-iron columns support timber beams and floors.

Duty Free Warehouse 4 is a double-pile warehouse at the south-east corner of the site with corrugated-iron infill over a pend to the west. The west wall is rubble with infilled window openings except for three windows with cast-iron bars and projecting cills. The south elevation is blank with a corrugated-iron infill section. Sliding vertically-boarded timber doors serve the pend at street level. The pitched roofs are clad in corrugated material.

Duty Free Warehouse 5 presents a two-bay, four-storey elevation to the west with grey granite rubble walls and sandstone ashlar lintels and projecting cills, iron bars to windows, and a slit window centring the gablehead. The buttressed north wall is exposed. Vertically-boarded timber doors have cast-iron hinges. The pitched roof is clad in modern corrugated material with cast-iron gutters, downpipes and large hoppers. The remaining west wall of a former adjoining building stands adjacent; the north wall has been demolished. Infilled openings in the west wall are finished with stugged sandstone dressings. A modern rendered lean-to garage with a slated monopitch roof and vertically-boarded two-leaf timber doors with external hinges now occupies the adjacent site.

The Mash House features an open timber roof with a slated piend-roofed ventilator at the ridge.

The Tun Room has a metal trussed roof construction.

The Boiler House is a brick addition to the east of the Still House with a curved north-east corner, also housing oil and soda stores.

The Still House has a steel truss roof construction, recently re-covered in 1993. A vertically-boarded timber sliding door opens to the courtyard at the rear. The Mill Room to the west end has an open timber piended roof. A brick addition to the east contains the boiler house and oil and soda tanks. An adjacent red brick chimney to the east is painted red and black with metal bands around it.

Disused Store 2 is a two-bay structure with an east end gable elevation visible, featuring loading doors at the first bay of each floor and a doorway at ground floor, bay 2. Vertically-boarded two-leaf timber doors with external hinges are fitted at ground floor.

The Filling Store is a two-bay, four-storey building with a rendered east elevation, projecting cills and iron bars to windows, and a slit window in the gablehead. A doorway at ground floor bay 1 has a window to the left, fitted with vertically-boarded two-leaf timber doors. Timber joists and floorboards span between cast-iron columns and beams. The roof is grey slate.

Disused Warehouse 6 is a four-storey warehouse over basement located in the south-west corner of the site, adjacent to the Filling Store. It is a double-pile structure with coursed rubble walls. A single-bay section of the north elevation is visible at the east end with slit windows and a doorway at ground floor. The east wall above ground floor is obscured by the infill of Warehouse 4. The five-storey south elevation contains three widely spaced bays with a slit window at basement level and windows with iron bars and projecting cills above.