187 High Street, Perth

William Alexander of Dundee, 1898-1900; GPK Young, interior restoration after fire 1924; alterations 1950s and 1960s, canopy added 1967; Gordon and Dry Partnership, extension and renovation, 1981. High Street frontage MacLaren & Mackay, Perth, 1897 (see Notes). Striking 4-storey, 6-bay (above ground) classically-detailed tenement and shop frontage in distinctive red sandstone with dominant shouldered and corniced wallhead stacks, canopied entrance leading through tenement to conservatory-style foyer and piend-roofed brick built theatre with outstanding little-altered rococo auditorium. Ground floor cornice and plain frieze, cill courses and eaves cornice. Channelled ashlar pilasters with decorative consoled capitals flank ground floor shops and theatre entrance, latter with keystoned roundheaded doorway; 1st and 2nd floors with corniced windowheads, some raised margins, stone mullions.

FURTHER DESCRIPTION: principal (S) elevation with canopied theatre entrance leading to ironwork gate and deep-set 2-leaf part-glazed panelled timber door to left of centre at ground, shop to left with in-canted door and 2 modern shops to right. Similar fenestration pattern to each floor above comprising single window to left of centre with 2 bipartite windows beyond and bipartite to right of centre with single window and tripartite beyond. Cutlog Vennel elevation to W with windows and door to low piended ashlar bays giving way to later timber link to brick theatre building. Plain piended brick elevation to Mill Street (N).

INTERIOR: entrance through ground floor of tenement and stairs up to foyer with decorative cast iron trusses supporting glass roof, relief of Marjorie Dence by Scott Sutherland 1969 and re-sited memorial stone laid by George

Alexander (see Notes). Fine rococo plasterwork to 2-tiered auditorium with horse-shoe plan circle and balcony, linking to boxes and proscenium; narrow cast-iron columns; bowed balcony front with consoled features and straight upper balcony front with elegant swag detail. Fluted Ionic pilasters below boxes, Ionic-capitalled baluster shafts flanking boxes, and Corinthian-pilasters with ornamented shafts above; arched panels over boxes and proscenium. Plain circled ceiling from 1924.