30, 32, 34 Argyll Street, Campbeltown

30, 32, 34 Argyll Street, Campbeltown

A three-storey tenement with attic and tower elements, designed by Thomas L Watson of Glasgow in 1907. The building forms an L-plan with a 28-bay elevation on the northeast facing Argyll Street, and a 4-bay elevation to the southeast.

The northeast elevation is constructed of bull-faced squared and snecked sandstone with red ashlar dressings and details. The facade is organised in a symmetrical arrangement (1-4-2-3-2-3-2-3-2-5-1 bays), except for an additional bay inserted as the 23rd. A central 3-bay section contains entrance doors to each bay with narrow windows to the centre bay, simply decorated lintels and corniced sills. The central doorway is architraved and corniced with a semicircular pediment and flanking narrow windows. Double-bay arrangements on either side of the centre (bays 11-12 and 16-17) feature two closely spaced windows at ground floor, with 2-storey 3-light corbelled and canted oriels at the 1st and 2nd floors. The 2nd floor centre window of each double-bay is framed by engaged columns supporting an open pediment over the lintel with keystone decoration. Gables break the eaves at each bay with an arrowslit in the gablehead, a niche at the apex framed by columns, bracketed and corniced sill, and an open semicircular pediment above. Flanking 3-bay sections (bays 8-10 and 18-20) match the central 3 bays, with their flanking double-bay arrangements featuring open semicircular pediments at 2nd floor centre windows and oriels only breaking the eaves without gables behind. The flanking bays (4th-5th and 23rd-25th) are similar to the centre bays with variations in door placement: the 4th bay has a door to the left with architraved semicircular pediment; the 5th bay has an architraved and corniced door at ground floor with a narrow window to the left; the 23rd bay has an architraved door with semicircular pediment at ground floor with narrow windows above; doors to the right of the 24th bay are architraved with semicircular pediment, with a narrow window at ground floor.

Flanking 2-bay gable ends rise to a 3rd floor within raised wallheads, with gableheads above and apex stacks matching those flanking the centre section. Vertical strips carved with panels below the 1st floor string course read "1907" and "BAROCHAN PLACE" at the north and south ends respectively. Semi-octagonal towers turn the corners at the end bays, featuring 3-light canted bay windows at the corners, corbelled out at the 1st floor with a cornice at the eaves.

The southeast elevation rises to four storeys over four bays, with bipartite windows to the 1st and 2nd bays on all floors except the ground floor of the 2nd bay, which has an architraved and corniced door with a slit window to the left. An ashlar balcony with a solid corbelled parapet at the 3rd floor is present, with large semicircular corniced dormerheads breaking the eaves. The 3rd bay is blank with a wallhead stack extending down to corbel decoration at the 2nd floor cill course, intersecting with the corner tower in the bay to the right. A blank rendered gable end faces northwest.

The northwest elevation has a single bay to the centre with a semicircular dormerhead breaking the eaves and flanking wallhead stacks matching the southeast elevation, with a tower at the corner to the left. The rendered southwest (rear) elevation features regular fenestration grouped as bipartite windows to each floor flanking stair windows, with two widely spaced windows between each group. Stair windows at intermediate levels have 2-flue wallhead stacks above.

The rendered northwest and southwest elevations have red ashlar lintels and projecting cills. The base course incorporates "shot hole" ventilators, with a string course at the 1st floor articulated around downpipes and oriels, a cill course at the 2nd floor, and an eaves course.

Windows are timber sash and case with plate glass lower sashes, 6-pane upper sashes to most windows, and 4-pane to narrow windows. Rear windows are 4-pane timber sash and case, some with plate glass and modern glazing. Entrance doors are 6-panel with 3-pane fanlights above; the southeast elevation has a modern door. Inner entrance doors are 2-panel with 3-pane fanlights.

Roofs are of grey slate with terracotta ridges; corner towers have lead or zinc ogee roofs with tall finials, and curved dormers at the southeast front have lead or zinc roofs. Cast-iron downpipes with hoppers and profiled gutters run along the northeast and southeast elevations. Multi-flue stacks to mutual gables are rendered and coped to the rear and bull-faced to the front with ashlar dressing, string course and cornice. All stacks have red circular cans.

A low wall extends from the base course of the street elevation slightly to the north, terminated by a plain square gatepier with a short length of wrought ironwork railing of Art Nouveau influence.

Wash-houses of single storey roughcast construction with red sandstone ashlar dressings are of rectangular plan, with bipartite windows in end elevations, piended roofs with exposed rafter ends at the eaves, terracotta tiles, timber ventilators and 4-flue corniced stacks at the ridge. Single storey ranges of coal cellars connect the wash-house to the rear elevation of the tenement, with flat roofs and six vertically boarded timber doors. A lean-to coal cellar at the northwest end of the garden has vertically boarded timber doors and a grey slate monopitch roof.

Wrought-iron railings to the gardens at the rear feature finialled stanchions and integral clothes-line poles.

The interior has panelled inner entrance doors at ground floor with 9-pane glazed uppers and 3-pane fanlights above. Tiled dados line the common stair halls, which have concrete stairs with cast-iron balusters and timber handrails. Flats have 6-panel polished timber doors.