Friarfield House, 64-66 Barrack Street, Dundee

Friarfield House is a three-storey and basement office building on a corner site, dating from 1873-1875 and designed by James McLaren and George Shaw Aitken. The building is constructed in a Renaissance style, with a rusticated base of ashlar, and stugged ashlar courses above accented by ashlar dressings. A prominent three-window circular corner features a square-columned Doric doorpiece, a dentil cornice, and a parapet. Tall, panelled pilaster strips rise from the first to the second floor, terminating in paired consoles and a dentil cornice, topped by a balustraded parapet punctuated by an arched, segmentally pedimented dormer. A French conical roof has a bold lead cornice, cast-iron brattishing, and a flagpole at a platform.

The Barrack Street elevation is symmetrical, with fourteen windows arranged in four bays, each end defined by pilasters. The pilasters are rusticated at ground level, banded at the first floor, and vertically channelled at the second floor. Windows are set within architraves, arranged as single windows or groups of three, with prominent cornices and pediments on the first floor. The second-floor windows have shouldered arched heads. A dentil cornice and parapet caps the elevation, embellished with urn finials set over dies. A doorway on the south side of the Barrack Street elevation provides access to a mill lodge. The central doorway has been altered from its original window configuration. The South Ward Road elevation mirrors this style, featuring three single windows. The south gable, also in a similar style, includes a wallhead stack.

The rear elevation is of plain rubble, with irregular window placement and blocked basement windows. A rubble gable on the South Ward Road side shows provision for a planned, but unbuilt, extension. Slate roofs are punctuated by ridge stacks, with one ornate stack surviving.

The interior features a fine circular entrance hall rising through two floors, lined with Corinthian and Doric pilasters. A wide staircase with a cast-iron balustrade leads to the first floor. A simpler staircase provides access to the mill, situated towards the south end of the building. A cast-iron spiral staircase, believed to have been salvaged from two trams, is located at the South Ward Road end. Most first-floor rooms have simple cornices, however Mr Don's and Mr Buist’s rooms, situated near the staircase and further south respectively, are distinguished by more elaborate cornices and marble fireplaces. A second floor, formerly used as a store for manufactured goods, is of lesser architectural interest. The ground floor dining rooms are plain and functional. The basement, which housed raw flax and jute, is fireproof, with cast-iron columns and beams, brick arches, and several internal partitions. Ashlar gatepiers with wood and wrought-iron gates mark the south entrance.