11, 12 Yardheads (former John Crabbie and Co. office block)

The building at 11 and 12 Yardheads is a complex of structures dating primarily to 1825-6, incorporating earlier elements of the Yardheads brewery. Later additions were made over time. The buildings form a roughly E-shaped configuration, partly with a basement, and originally included a brewery, winery, still house, and bond (previously used as maltings and a granary), arranged around two yards open to Yardheads. The main block is constructed of cream sandstone with tooled ashlar to the front, while the rear and sides use coursed and squared rubble, and squared and snecked rubble and brick for Nos 12 and 13 Yardheads.

The front (SW) elevation is 14 bays wide and nearly symmetrical, rising three storeys with a basement. It features a base course and an eaves cornice with a blocking course. The central eight bays are slightly recessed, with regular window placement. A band course runs above the ground floor, and a cill course is at the second floor level. The six central bays have a blind arcading on the first floor. The three outer bays are slightly advanced and have segmental-arched entrances. A small courtyard is accessed through an entrance to the east, with a forestair with iron balusters, hoist doors and machinery. Taller first-floor windows are present in the third and fourth bays from the right.

The rear (NE) elevation and stalk have undergone much alteration. The south yard has a four-bay SE range with segmental-arched dormerheads on the third floor, as well as hoist doors and a gable. The NE range has two bays with hoist doors. The NW range, rebuilt between 1951 and 1963 and rendered, sits in the center of the E-plan. The north yard has a two-bay NE range with two large blocked arches featuring red ashlar voussoirs on the first floor. A modern rendered gable is on the right. A four-storey warehouse (formerly maltings) flanks the NE range, with single windows and four bays fronting Yardheads, some of which are blocked. A square-sectioned brick stalk, rebuilt in the early to mid-19th century, stands in a re-entrant angle along with a modern, single-storey boiler house with a piend and gabled roof.

Nos 12 and 13 Yardheads (circa 1890) are a four-storey office block to the outer left, with irregular windows and a blocked segmental-arched entrance off-centre to the right.

The NW (former Brewery Lane) elevation contains a three-bay still house. A long, four-storey and basement former maltings extends to the left, with alternating windows blocked after conversion to a bonded warehouse. An adjoining building was demolished, with the gable subsequently rendered.

Most of the windows are inward-opening timber casements, with bars at ground floor level. Horizontal astragals are missing from the still house, and those on the first floor of the front elevations are sash and case windows with plate glass glazing. The roofs are mostly piend, with some corrugated metal sheeting replacements dating circa 1951.

The interior features timber floors supported by cast-iron columns. The central winery was largely rebuilt between 1951 and 1963 to accommodate larger vats, and now has a front facing Great Junction Street, situated above an original stone-vaulted basement. Two rectified gin stills by Arch McMillan & Co, coppersmiths, Edinburgh, dated 1887, are present, complete with worm condensers.