Calcutta Buildings, 16, 18 Commercial Street, Dundee

Late 19th century. 3-storey and attic, Renaissance-detailed, 16-bay commercial terrace with canted angle bays, 3 bays to left return and 5 bays to right. Grey sandstone ashlar, slate Mansard roof with fishscale bands to octagonal angle domes and flattened pyramidal roof at no 22. Corniced ground floor, decorative frieze at 1st floor, corbelled main cornice at 2nd, panelled parapet; pend to no. 20 has pedimented channelled pilasters, and pilaster strips rising through 1st and 2nd floors with urn finials to parapet above; paired pilaster strips elsewhere to 1st and 2nd floors rising to corniced and pilastered parapet stacks, pediment detail between floors. Single, bi- and tripartite windows with 2-pane timber sash and case glazing, mostly architraved, some with cusped lintels and colonette mullions with composite capitals to 1st floor; single, bi- and tripartite aediculaed dormers with segmental and triangular pediments, all originally urn-finialled (7 out of 15 remaining). Domes have glazed and corniced

octagonal drums with decorative wrought-iron finials; decorative wrought-iron parapet to pyramidal roof.

COMMERCIAL STREET ELEVATION: asymmetrical; shopfronts to ground floor (public house to no 18), pend entry to no 20 with decorative wrought-iron gates, whin setts and steel cart tracks, 3 close doors; windows to 1st and 2nd floor arranged 2-1-3-2-1-6-1, dormers arranged 2-1-1-1-3-3-1; canted angle bays to left and right, tripartite windows to 1st and 2nd floors, tripartite dormers at drums of domes.

LEFT RETURN ELEVATION TO EXCHANGE STREET: public house to ground floor, tripartite window to 1st and 2nd floors, single dormer.

RIGHT RETURN ELEVATION: door and various windows to ground floor, bipartite and tripartite to 1st floor with pierced parapet to wallhead at right, bipartite to 2nd floor left and single dormer above.

INTERIOR: not seen.