Gardyne's Land, 70, 71 High Street, Dundee

Gardyne's Land is a rare early domestic survival dating back to 1560, situated in the heart of Dundee's High Street. The High Street facade was altered and the wallhead heightened in the early 18th century, concealing the original timber front, with few alterations since. A significant restoration was undertaken between 2004 and 2007 by the Tayside Buildings Preservation Trust, with Simpson and Brown acting as project architects and Brown Construction as principal contractors.

The building is a four-storey and double-attic, six-bay merchant's house. The High Street elevation has modern ground floor shopfronts, while the centre features a shaped gable with a wallhead stack and a 1932 commemorative clock. This clock is surmounted by a model of William Adam’s 1731 Town House, moved from an adjacent building in 2006, and the clock's face is inscribed “1732 MEMORY IS TIME 1932”. An off-centre pend leads to Gardyne's Land at the rear, featuring a bowed stair turret corbelled out over the ground floor, along with a corbel course on the second floor and some jettied bays at the second and third floors. The facade is finished in limewashed harl, with relieving arches and stepped hoodmoulds, along with chamfered and roll-moulded arrises.

The rear block, adjoining 2-bay link to the rear of the High Street block on the east side of Gray’s Close, is stepped and rectangular in plan and features a monumental four-bay west gable fronting Gray's Close. This gable incorporates chamfered windows at ground level, with roll-moulded surrounds and relieving arches at upper floors. A central ground floor door is set beneath a stepped hoodmould and lintel carved ‘1607 AS PK’ below a small, horizontally-aligned window. A corbelled bowed stair turret is present, altered internally. The lower two floors of the bay to the right are recessed within a segmental arch, with more modern masonry above. Two bays to the left are set back but jettied at the second and third floors.

The High Street elevation has windows with a 12-pane glazing pattern in timber sash and case frames; rear windows have varied designs. Grey slates cover the roof, with a coped harled wallhead stack and replacement brick gable end stacks.

The interior was sympathetically converted into a youth hostel during the restoration and retains much original fabric, including fireplaces, cornices, shutters, and corbels. Two spiral staircases are present, featuring solid newels. The front block is constructed of timber post and beam. The first floor has been remodelled, incorporating working shutters and late 19th-century partitions. The second floor retains a bolection moulded stone chimneypiece. The third floor features raised and fielded panelling dating to around 1720, and a classical timber-lined wall cupboard, with a glazed door, remodelled from a photograph dating to around 1910. A strap-hinged door with a wooden lock provides access to the loft. The roof is apparently original, with collar rafters numbered throughout and individual wall plates at right angles to the walls. The rear block was remodelled in 1887, retaining some earlier structural elements, including two cast iron ranges and interior corbels to bipartite windows. The roof features 19th-century timbers.