Claverhouse Bleachworks, Dundee

Claverhouse Bleachworks, Dundee

Extensive bleachfield buildings dating in part from circa 1780, enlarged 1834-5, comprising a beetling/beating house, office and yard store, and chimney stalk.

The beetling/beating house is a long rubble-built range with ashlar dressings and gables with skewputts and flat-topped finials. Running from east to west, the range comprises: an eastern bleaching house of circa 1780, a single-storey 3-bay section with stone flagged roof slated towards the ridge (probably replacing original louvres); a 2-storey and attic 5-bay block to its left with a 2-bay gable and gabled loading bay added circa 1835 (with a weathered datestone), approached by a weatherboarded porch at steps on the left; and a western block (probably the original washing/bleaching house), comprising a 1-storey and attic 10-bay centre with advanced 2-storey 3-bay wings refronted and partially reconstructed 1834-5. The ground floor has loading doors at the wings and smaller doors above ground level to the centre block. A modern awning covers the western wing. The 3-bay western elevation has lower courses of 18th-century work. Roofs are slate with long skylights near the eaves and ridge ventilators.

The northern elevation towards the lade is 18th-century work, with a western gable of 1834-5. Windows are blocked in this elevation. Beneath the 3 small windows of the 2-storey beetling house section are 2 blocked arched waterwheel pits. Windows throughout show 30-pane glazing in a pattern of alternating fixed and sash-and-case sashes. Roofs are stone flagged and slated.

The interior reveals rudimentary timber construction, including timber posts. The central gabled section contains very early bamboo-like cast-iron columns to the north, contrasting with standard 1830s columns to the south. A wide-span timber roof covers the central section. The high-ceilinged western gable rests on timber posts with wrought-iron cross-ties.

The office and yarn store, built circa 1835, is a 2-storey T-plan structure of rubble-built construction with ashlar dressings and skewputted gables. The office portion is 2-storey with a 2-bay south elevation; windows are margined with gablets over. A single-bay western gable has a ground floor door. The eastern road elevation has 2 windows and a door at ground level. The southern gables are skewputted. Ashlar panelled gable-end stacks were taken down circa 1980. Wrought-iron railings edge a bridge and steps in the western re-entrant.

The yard store is a single-storey 8-bay elevation facing the road. The 5th bay is advanced with a gabletted stack. A north gable stack is present. The western elevation is 2-storey with a slightly advanced off-centre gablet containing a clock and a square swept-roofed bellcote. A segmental-arched opening below (providing access to the gasworks opposite) has a modern louvred grill. The ground floor contains 4 doors, of which one has been altered to a window, and 4 windows. Windows are 12-pane sash-and-case to the office and fixed 25-pane to the yarn store. Roofs are slate.

The interior has been modernised, but clock weights and a dentil cornice to the boardroom have been retained.

The chimney stalk probably dates to circa 1838-9 or 1848-9 (periods associated with the acquisition of steam engines for calenders). It is a prominent square-section brick-built stalk approximately 120 feet high with wrought-iron tie bands and a top oversailer cornice. It sits on a tall rubble-built plinth with ashlar cornice, updraught arch, tiebands and iron brackets. A pronounced eastward lean occurred as the mortar set during construction (a phenomenon evident at other works, such as Cox's Stack at Rockwell Works).