31-39 Beach Crescent, Broughty Ferry, Dundee

This is a substantial Italianate villa, built around 1866 by James MacLaren for shipbuilder Stephen. A later gallery was added around 1936 by James Findlay. The villa is located at 31-39 Beach Crescent, Broughty Ferry, Dundee, with associated walls and gatepiers at King Street.

The villa is two storeys and has an irregular plan spread over four bays. It is constructed of coursed stone with redressed ashlar quoins, showing extensive mortar repairs to the dressings and canted windows. The roof is slate.

The South elevation is symmetrical. Slightly advanced outer bays feature two-storey canted windows, with a set-back at the first floor. A single-storey, flat-roofed addition is on the left, notable for the square-section downpipe and box hopper. The off-centre door is set within a moulded, keystoned round-arched doorpiece that has a continuous hoodmould and parapet. A shallow, advanced bipartite window is on the right, crowned with a blind parapet. Flanking canted windows have panelled aprons, and a moulded string course runs at first floor level. Ground floor windows are round-headed with keystoned architraves; first-floor windows are squared with plain margins. All windows are timber sash and case with two panes per sash, and small panes at the top. The eaves are moulded, with cast-iron guttering, five corniced stacks topped with decorative cans, a small central square lantern light, and a piended roof. A low enclosing wall with pyramidal-capped angle piers runs along the South side.

The North elevation has a large paired stair window at the centre, with a single window to the left, featuring margined glazing. Various other windows are present, along with a plain two-storey wing on the left and a lower stable block.

The later gallery, to the right, is two storeys and six bays, constructed of snecked rubble with channelled pilasters. It has modern two-pane sash and case windows and corner piers. The North (King Street) elevation displays the inscription 'Ochar Gallery' in a sculpted panel, and a margined oculus containing a stained glass panel commemorating James Guthrie Ochar (1825-1898), with a foliate hoodmould and a skew gable with a rounded apex stone. A flat-coped, snecked rubble wall with two pyramidal-capped gatepiers encloses a courtyard.

The villa was originally built for Stephen, the shipbuilder, and subsequently housed Provost Ochar’s collection of 19th-century Scottish paintings. The interior was reconstructed in 1988-89, and the collection was moved to the McManus Gallery, Dundee.