Edward Street Mill, Edward Street, Dundee

Edward Street Mill is a substantial industrial building dating from 1851, with a significant addition of an engine house in 1890 by C and L Ower. The mill occupies a rising site to the rear of Edward Street. It is constructed of coursed rubble stone with ashlar quoins and dressings.

The main north front is a three-storey and attic, 19-bay block, with advanced, quoined three-bay sections at each end. The ground floor centre bay originally contained a wide door, now replaced with a window. Bay doors provided access to staircases, and three sliding doors, dating circa 1890, complete the ground floor. On the first floor, two bays at the west end formerly held a gangway and drive shaft for an engine, now blocked and situated above a car park. A cornice runs along the top of the front. It has a slate roof with skylights.

The east elevation is a three-storey four-bay section with a ground floor door and a first-floor roll-moulded band course. A cornice sits below a gable featuring two windows and three oculi, with skewputts and flat-topped finials. A symmetrical eight-bay front serves the three first-floor sheds, with the end bays being tripartite, quoined, and advanced on a roll-moulded band course, finished with a cornice and parapet. The Forest Park Place elevation is simpler, with loading bays, some of which are now blocked. The slate shed roofs are a characteristic feature. The west elevation mirrors that of the east, with an adjoining rope alley fronted by a three-storey, one-bay gabled block added in 1890, matching the style of the original building.

The large engine house, also from 1890, features a window, its lower portion concealed behind a modern brick wall. A stair has been removed. It boasts a piended roof with a clerestory window. While most windows are wooden-framed with top hoppers, dating from 1890, one survives from 1851 as a multi-paned sash and case window.

The ground floor interior incorporates a mechanics shop with brick arches supported by two rows of cast-iron columns. One column is bracketed to accommodate shafts running northwards under the powerloom sheds. An unusual feature is three rows of cast-iron boxes within the arches, which carried belt drives to the first-floor looms. The first floor also has two rows of cast-iron columns with brick arches, plus a row of stout columns with Doric capitals supporting a cast-iron beam and the south wall of the north block. Three powerloom sheds are roofed by wide-span, double-pitched king-post roofs, each supported by two rows of cast-iron columns. A small addition from 1890 is located on the southwest. On the second floor are two rows of cast-iron columns and brick arches, and the attic features wide-span wrought-iron ties without intervening columns, previously used for winding and warping. The attic also includes a stone-flagged floor, lift shafts, and spiral staircases at each end.

The Engine House includes a later boardroom and a brick partition separating the wheelpit and rope race. The dado is decorated with green and white glazed tiles, with plastered walls above and a large plaster cornice. The interior is notable for its superb timber roof featuring tie-beams with pendant bosses and dark herringbone panels. A wheelpit accommodates the fly-wheel, and a rope alley rises upwards to the south, with underfloor shafts leading to a three-storey front at the west end of the north block. The basement is constructed of heavy masonry and contains tunnels and a pump.