Bonded Wharehouses, Dallas Dhu Distillery

Dallas Dhu Distillery is a remarkably complete whisky distillery complex built between 1898 and 1901 to designs by the architect Charles Chree Doig (1855–1918). It stands on Mannachie Road on the southern edge of Forres, in Moray, set in a hollow close to farmland to the south and west, with a wooded area to the west. The complex is approached from the south across open farm fields, where it reads as a distinctive industrial building in the rural landscape. When approached from the north and the town of Forres, the complex is largely screened by trees and neighbouring farm buildings, though the brick chimney stack and pagoda roof remain just visible above them.

The listing covers the malting and distilling buildings including the chimney and worm tubs, the storage shed, the bonded warehouses, the barrel hoist, and the barrel rails. The toilet block is excluded from the listing.

Origins and Historical Background

The distillery was originally called Dallasmore and was funded by the entrepreneur and distillery owner Alexander Edward, as one of two distilleries built on his Sanquhar estate. The sites were chosen primarily for their proximity to a railway line rather than a reliable water supply. Water for the distillery was drawn from the Altyre Burn, approximately a quarter of a mile to the south, with additional cooling water from the Blair Burn. The site was also chosen for its closeness to the good barley-growing land of the Laich of Moray.

Building in a hollow proved useful for the water supply, which arrived under pressure, but the ground was boggy and needed stabilising. The walls of the malt barn began to sink after construction and had to be strengthened with ties, which remain visible on the exterior of the building today.

Before it went into production, the distillery was sold in 1899 to Wright and Greig Ltd, a Glasgow blending company, who bought it to secure a supply of malt whisky for their popular blend 'Roderick Dhu', named after a character in Sir Walter Scott's novel The Lady of the Lake. Production began on 29 May 1899 and the first barrel was filled on 3 June. The bonded warehouses, also designed by Doig, were added in 1901.

The distillery changed hands several times and temporarily ceased production during the First and Second World Wars and during the economic depression of the early 1930s. Between 1921 and 1928, Benmore Distilleries Ltd owned the site and invested heavily, introducing electric lighting, conveyor belts and hoists, and building a railway siding off the adjacent Inverness–Perth junction railway, which was operated by the Highland Railway Company. A new bonded warehouse was also built around 1925, and this is likely to be the two-storey warehouse to the east of the range.

Scottish Malt Distillers, a subsidiary of the Distillers' Company Ltd, took ownership in 1930. From 1936 until the distillery's closure in 1983, equipment was continuously repaired or upgraded. This included new wash-backs and worm tubs in 1937, the replacement of steam engines and waterwheels with electric-powered pumps and conveyors in 1950, and the addition of two new wash-backs, a new mash tun, and a new boiler in 1964 to increase capacity. The two copper stills were replaced in 1968–69. Charles Doig's original drawings show the distillery was designed with four wash-backs; there are now six, indicating that the tun room has been extended.

In 1939 a fire broke out in the still house, burning for four hours and causing between £7,000 and £10,000 worth of damage to plant and buildings. The fire was contained within the still house and did not spread to the mash house or spirit store. The extent of structural damage is not fully known, but the roof was likely replaced. It maintains the appearance shown in Doig's drawings, including the ridge windows and a row of lights in the west pitch. The openings in the north wall of the still house were altered at some point: single window openings at ground and first floor level to the left of the arched opening have been blocked, and a tall, flat-arched opening has been added.

The adjacent railway line closed in 1963, and an elevator was installed in the malt barn to handle loose bulk barley delivered by lorry. The distillery became uneconomical compared with Scottish Malt Distillers' other sites. The malt barn became redundant when a larger maltings was opened at Burghead, and the distillery also suffered from an unreliable water supply. The last barrel of whisky was filled on 16 March 1983 and the distillery closed. On its closure in 1987, Dallas Dhu Distillery was transferred to Scottish Ministers. It was sold to a private owner in 1997 but remained in the guardianship of Scottish Ministers, and currently operates as a visitor attraction.

Since commercial production ended in 1987, the buildings have been repaired and maintained but not significantly changed. The external stair to the barley loft floor has been rebuilt for safer visitor access, and the chimney has been reduced in height by 7 metres. A photograph from 1974 shows that the chimney originally had three polychrome brick diamond motifs; it now retains one. The roof of the tun room has been replaced with corrugated sheeting supported on braced metal rafters; a drawing held by Moray Archives indicates this reroofing took place in 1980.

The Architect: Charles Chree Doig

Charles Chree Doig had a well-established reputation for designing efficient and attractive distilleries, and designed around fifty of them, mostly in Banffshire, Morayshire, and Inverness-shire. His most noted achievement was the invention in 1889 of a ventilator that improved the efficiency of kilns at Dailuaine Distillery Maltings. This innovation became known as the Doig Ventilator, and its pagoda-like form has since become the most characteristic single architectural feature of Scottish distilleries. It was highly practical in function, carefully proportioned in the golden ratio, and consequently also visually pleasing. Dallas Dhu Distillery is a good surviving example of Doig's rationally planned distillery layout, in which the whisky-making process flows logically and efficiently from one end of the building to the other, from south to north, in a manner that was deliberately labour-saving.

The Buildings: External Description

The complex consists of a single- and two-storey E-plan malting and distilling factory to the east, a single- and two-storey range of bonded warehouses to the west, a single-storey wooden storage shed with a corrugated metal roof between the two, and two pairs of single-storey-and-attic former distillery workers' houses further to the west.

The malting and distilling factory is built on an E-plan and comprises, reading through the production sequence, a malt barn, kiln, mash house, tun room, still house, and filling store with offices.

Most of the distillery buildings are constructed in harl-pointed rubble with tooled ashlar dressings, and most of the exterior walls are painted. The roofs are pitched and slated with straight stone skews. The kiln has an ogee-shaped slated roof topped by a pagoda louvered apex vent — Doig's celebrated invention. Adjoining the north end of the still house is a tall, tapered, square-plan chimney built of red brick with contrasting yellow brick quoins.

The south elevation of the malt barn is symmetrical and twelve bays long. The attic windows are smaller and square. In the north gable of the malt barn there is a double door opening above ground level and one at attic floor level.

The range of bonded warehouses consists of five units. The east and west walls have continuous gable ends. The warehouses are mainly single storey, and each gable has three openings, with the exception of the east block, which is two storeys high and has six openings. Immediately in front of the north side of the warehouses, and running along most of their length, is a pair of iron barrel rails. There are further short sections of rails leading to an opening in the west elevation of the warehouse, and in front of this is a barrel hoist.

Immediately to the east of the distillery building is an embankment lined by trees. This was the course of the Inverness–Perth junction railway (opened in 1863), which had a halt and sidings at Dallas Dhu Distillery to serve the production. Some of the tracks from the distillery's railway sidings still survive immediately to the east of the mash house. The railway line between Aviemore and Forres closed in 1965, the track has been removed, and the route is now part of the Dava Way walking and cycling path; the embankment and track fragments remain as physical reminders of this connection.

The Buildings: Interior

The interior, as inspected in 2019, retains many of its traditional whisky-distilling fixtures and fittings. The barley loft — the attic floor of the malt barn — contains two large metal tanks known as steeps. Part of the malting floor on the ground floor of the malt barn is in use as a shop and offices, with some later and reversible subdivision. The ground floor of the malt kiln retains the kiln fire. The distillery equipment — including the two large copper stills in the still house, the metal mash tun in the mash house, and the six large wooden wash-backs in the tun room — was replaced at various points between 1937 and 1969, which is consistent with normal operational wear over the distillery's working life. The level of survival of distillery equipment in a non-working building is nonetheless remarkable, and the complex as a whole clearly illustrates the successive stages of the whisky-making process.

Significance

Dallas Dhu Distillery is significant both architecturally and historically. It is a remarkably complete example of a late 19th-century whisky distillery, retaining all of its original buildings associated with the production process, together with workers' housing to the west and two detached houses to the north built for the distillery manager and excise officer. The close physical relationship between all these buildings, and their shared design details, allow the way the site functioned when first built to be clearly read.

The distillery was built and opened towards the end of the boom period of Speyside distillery construction, which saw around twenty new distilleries built in Moray and Banffshire between 1894 and 1899, driven by strong demand for fruity Speyside whiskies for blending and by the quality of the local barley. Most of those distilleries which continued in production have been significantly remodelled or rebuilt, particularly in the later 20th century. Most of those which remain largely unaltered have ceased production, including Parkmore (listed category B) and Coleburn (listed category B). Dallas Dhu is therefore an exceptionally rare surviving example of a complete, traditional, largely unaltered whisky distillery of this period. The buildings are of good quality construction in materials likely sourced locally, and maintain a high level of architectural integrity.

The Doig Ventilator on the kiln and the tall polychrome brick chimney are the most architecturally distinctive elements of the complex, and both serve as prominent features in the wider rural landscape. The survival of the railway embankment and fragments of the distillery sidings further enrich the historic setting. The immediate setting of the distillery is largely unaltered from when it was first built, with no significant later development intruding upon it — an increasingly unusual condition for a distillery site of this date and type.