Printing Works, 58-62 Bank Street, Kilmarnock

Printing Works, 58-62 Bank Street, Kilmarnock

This is a 3-storey building with attic, designed by Gabriel Andrew of Andrew & Newlands in 1903 and built for Messrs Smith Bros. It is a 2 and 3-bay Flemish Renaissance corner building with a canted entrance positioned on the angle. The structure uses dressed red Ballochmyle ashlar with a polished granite base course and band courses that form sills at floor levels above. A high moulded parapet with decorative piercings and gables completes the roofline.

The principal elevation to the south-west features a pilastered arched door surround with a projecting keystone. The later door has an arched single-pane fanlight above it. Flanking the door are recessed niches linked to surmounting blind roundels by projecting keystones, with pilasters supporting a corbelled bay window to the upper storeys. A paired band course divides the storeys. The first floor has a 4-light bracketed bay window comprising a bipartite window with stone mullion to the centre and pilastered canted outer lights. Giant brackets support a second floor canted balcony with semi-circular pierced detail, an arched central window, and canted arched lights to the flanks. A deep moulded cornice leads to a high parapet with a shaped wallhead featuring a central Diocletian window. A broken pediment surmounts this, with a central shaft terminating in a finial.

The south elevation is essentially 3-bay. A later shop window occupies the ground floor to the left, while tripartite windows divided by stone transoms occupy the centre and right at ground level. A projecting sill course marks the first floor, which has a single window to the left and tripartite windows to the centre and right. The second floor follows the pattern of the first. A high curved parapet dominates the centre and right with pierced paired semi-circular decorations. A lowered wallhead chimney sits to the left within a shaped gable, with semi-circular decoration to the flanks.

The west elevation comprises later ground floor shop frontage on the left with a double front and smaller lights to the top of the plate glass windows, a central inset doorway with plate glass side lights, and a slightly altered architraved doorway with multi-light fanlight to the right of the shop. A further plate glass shop window occupies the far right. The upper floors are essentially 2-bay with identical first and second storeys: a tripartite window with pilastered margins to the right, and a 4-light bracketed bay window to the left comprising a bipartite window with stone mullion to the centre and curved outer lights. A paired band course splits the storeys. A deep moulded cornice leads to a high parapet, arched above the right bay with 5 pierced semi-circular details to the flanks. To the left the parapet continues into a broken pedimented wallhead gable with paired arched windows divided by a long stone shaft. Band courses clasp the shaft, and a single semi-circular decorative piercing sits to the left of the wallhead.

The north and east rear elevations show a blind yellow stock brick gable to the north with a lowered red brick stack at the gablehead and traces of a now blind arched window to the right. Originally the building was U-plan, but it is now abutted by a later 2-storey building to the east.

The roof is steeply pitched with piended grey slate, aluminium ridging and valleys. Cast-iron 2-pane Carron lights light the attic storey. Painted cast-iron rainwater goods and gutters are concealed behind the high parapet. Red brick gablehead stacks are lowered to the north, a single terracotta can to the east, and paired cans to a taller rear re-entrant angle stack.

Windows to the first and second floors have been replaced with 2-pane PVCu units. Later plate glass shop windows occupy the ground floor, with 6-pane upper lights to the west elevation shop.

The interior contains a very fine Art Nouveau tiled ground floor close with a mosaic floor featuring a fruit and stalk border and apples to the main runner. Aquamarine glazed long and short tiles cover the walls, with a ribbed dado and base tiles, and green and aquamarine paired tiles forming floral motifs to the upper wall. A tiled apple border runs along the hall, stairs and landing. An ornate cast-iron balustrade serves the stair.