The Speedwell Bar, 165-167 Perth Road, Dundee

The Speedwell Bar, located at 165-167 Perth Road in Dundee, is a four-storey tenement building designed by John Bruce and Son in 1903. It is built on a gusset site and features coursed rubble with ashlar dressings. The ground floor houses a public house with an impressive interior.

The elevation facing Perth Road showcases the original public house front made of painted ashlar, which includes two doors with mosaic floors and large plate glass windows adorned with Art Nouveau etching. The original lettering can be found at the rear of the seating area. Above, there are bipartite windows and two single lights set within lugged architraves on the first floor, corniced on the second, and with corbelled linking cill courses on the second and third floors. A central wallhead stack is topped with a plaque and a corbelled cornice. The canted corner features a recessed chamfer to the left, with similarly detailed windows that are pedimented on the second floor.

The elevation to Ford's Lane is more plain, constructed of rubble with a stepped-up wallhead stack and a blank north gable that also has a stack. The rear of the building includes three windows and a corbelled out ridge stack. The slate roofs are topped with a facetted angle turret and a wrought-iron weather vane. The windows are sash and case with a two-pane glazing pattern.

Inside the public house, the interior is remarkably intact. It features an L-plan public bar that is divided by a glazed wooden screen with urn finials. The bar screens are embellished with Art Nouveau etched glass. The space includes a dark wood gantry and dado panelling, along with an Anaglypta Jacobean ceiling. There are two sitting rooms that also have dado panelling, fireplaces, dentil cornices, and borrowed lights. The gentlemen's restroom features a mosaic floor and retains its original fittings.