Unicorn House, 62-63 Dock Street, Dundee

Unicorn House is a five-story building dating to 1881, designed by David MacLaren and constructed as a sailors’ home on a prominent corner site in Dundee. The building is arranged in an L-plan and utilizes a freestyle architectural style.

The exterior is constructed of stugged ashlar sandstone, channelled to the first floor, with smooth dressings. The concealed grey slate roof is punctuated by a flattened pyramidal roof over the stairwell, featuring a flagpole and decorative iron parapet. The ground floor incorporates corniced shopfronts with cast-iron columns and shouldered windows, supported by angle pilasters and consoles. A cill and lintel band runs along the first floor, with a further cill band to the third floor, and a wallhead frieze depicting the names of famous sailors. The parapet is consoled and dentilled. Windows are round-headed with keystones, featuring polished Peterhead granite mullions on the first floor, and segmental or margined windows on upper floors. Timber sash and case windows are present, with two panes on the first floor, eight panes on the second and third floors, and four panes on the fourth. The rainwater goods are rectangular cast iron.

The Dock Street elevation features a prominent, pilastered doorpiece with a mask keystone (representing Neptune?), a Peterhead granite anta with decorative capitals, and diaper-work within the intrados. Cast-iron gates, incorporating a sunburst motif and the lettering ‘SAILORS' HOME’, lead to the entrance. A three-bay shopfront is present to the left, a two-bay shopfront to the right, and an altered shop door at the angle. A datestone and cartouche are flanked by griffins supporting the window above. The first-floor windows are arranged with a tripartite window over an oriel, with bipartite windows flanking. The second, third, and fourth floors follow a similar rhythmic arrangement of windows. A segmental pediment above the parapet depicts a globe flanked by navigators. Coped stacks rise from the parapet and a round angle tower features windows, a corbelled parapet, and a leaded dome roof with a lantern.

The Candle Lane elevation presents a three-bay shopfront to the ground floor on the left, with a bipartite window above, flanked by single windows. Further windows are arranged symmetrically on the upper floors. To the right are six bays with windows on each floor, consistent with the Dock Street elevation.

A chapel is located to the far right, with a gable of stugged sandstone ashlar and a grey slate roof. It features a central door with an inscribed round-headed overdoor reading 'SEAMEN'S CHAPEL', flanked by paired round-headed panels. A large round-headed gallery window sits above, with ashlar-coped skews and an anchor relief at the apex. The return elevation is of blank rubble with red brick, indicating a later, now demolished, building.

The interior of the sailors’ home largely remains unaltered, showcasing a scale and platt staircase with decorative cast-iron panel balusters, Jacobean-style newel posts, and round-headed niches at the landings. Decorative plaster cornices are also present. The chapel is derelict, although the panelled gallery remains.