Scottish Widows, 50 Renfield Street, Glasgow

Scottish Widows, located at 50 Renfield Street in Glasgow, is a three-storey classical commercial building designed by David Bryce in 1868-1869 for the Junior Conservative Club. The building was later reconstructed internally by Peddie and Kinnear in 1871 for the Scottish Widows' Fund, with further alterations including the removal of balconies and the addition of a top floor in 1958 by Walter Underwood.

The structure features five by nine bays and is constructed with polished ashlar banded vermiculated rustication and voussoirs, while the rear elevation is made of droved ashlar. The ground floor has modern shops occupying the fourth to ninth bays from the south along Renfield Street, with a basement at West George Street that has steps leading to the entries and wide recessed basement windows. The windows are primarily sash and case with plate glass, and there are three sub-basement windows with dwarf architraves in the southern bays facing Renfield Street.

The ground floor windows are set on moulded corbelled cills, and there is a pilastered entrance at Nos. 112 and 114 West George Street. The ground floor features a glazed, pilastraded, arched design with blind sections above the transoms, and sculpted heads on the keyblocks.

The corner section of the building has a five by three-bay layout, with a dentil cornice at the ground floor and a balustrade on the first floor, which includes panelled piers at each window. All first-floor windows are adorned with aedicules featuring semi-engaged Corinthian columns and shell motifs in the tympana, with alternate segmental and triangular pediments. The second-floor windows have lugged architraves and corbelled moulded cills, complemented by a richly sculpted eaves frieze, a dentil band, and a projecting cornice, leading to the later attic. The detailing of the building continues for one bay into West Regent Lane at the northern bay on Renfield Street.