77 High Street, Dundee

Arnott's, at 80 and 81 High Street, Dundee, is a substantial commercial building constructed in 1871 to a design by William Mackison. A slightly simpler, adjoining building, number 77, was added later. The building housed a tea room in 1900, and subsequently underwent significant internal alterations, including new shopfronts, between 1906 and 1908 and again around 1930-1939, undertaken by Gauldie Hardie and Sharpe.

The building is four storeys and has an attic, comprising 23 bays and featuring a rounded corner and a projecting bay to the right return. It forms part of a commercial terrace with shopfronts along the ground floor. The main building material is sandstone ashlar, with the first floor channelled. The roof is slate covered. Pilasters are situated between the bay sections and at the rounded corner; originally channelled to the ground floor, they now only remain at number 78, and are panelled on the first and second floors, rising to consoled capitals and a main cornice. Paired pilasters are present on the third floor. The ground floor has a cornice, while a cill band incorporating open-work aprons (some now plain) is found on the first floor, with a further cill band and consoled cornice above. A wallhead course and corniced blocking course complete the exterior.

The majority of windows are single, two-pane timber sash and case, although tripartites are located in the central section of number 78, at the rounded corner, and in the flanking bays. Architraved windows with alternating segmental and triangular pediments feature on the first floor. The central windows of two principal seven-bay sections are designed as bipartites with a colonnetted mullion and consoled balconies above. The second floor windows are keystoned and round-headed, featuring composite-capitalled nook shafts and a continuous impost course. The third floor windows are keystoned and margined, while box dormers were added in the 1930s. A pedimented tripartite attic window rises from the parapet at the rounded corner bay, with round-headed parapet dormers on the flanking bays; similar treatment is applied to the dormers of number 78.

The front elevation is arranged in bays of 2-3-7-7-3-1. A pend entry leads to Rankine's Court from number 78. Shopfronts at numbers 77 and 78 have been altered, while number 80 presents a unified Deco appearance with three-tone polished granite, metal-framed windows and retractable blinds. Upper floor windows are as described above. The rounded corner of the building, set slightly back, faces Commercial Street, with a Doric columned door at ground floor level and tripartite windows on the upper floors, topped by a dormer and a flattened domical roof covered in fishscale slates, incorporating a cast-iron crown and flagpole. Number 78 has a pyramidal French pavilion roof, reduced in height in 1971.

The return elevation facing Meadowside features a ground floor shopfront and tripartite windows on the upper floors.

The rear elevation incorporates an L-shaped wing to numbers 77-80, situated between Campbell's Close and Rankine’s Court. This wing is constructed of rubble and brick, with a steeply pitched roof and a chamfered corner which predates the main front block (number 80). A reinforced concrete extension provides a curved stair and leaded light windows facing Rankine’s Court.

The interior has been remodelled, with a former "pillared" tea room featuring Corinthian columns, pilasters, cornices, and richly decorated ceilings in an Edwardian Classical style.