5, 7 Reform Street (former Blairgowrie Printers), Blairgowrie

Purpose-built printing works erected in 1880. The building is a single storey and attic structure with rectangular plan, located near the centre of Blairgowrie with its gable end facing the street. It is constructed of rendered brick, lined as ashlar, with stone cills. The window and door openings to the gable-ended street elevation are rounded headed.

The windows comprise 2-paned upper sashes over plate glass to the ground floor, with plate glass glazing elsewhere in timber sash and case frames. The pitched roof is covered in grey slates and incorporates long, continuous roof-lighting to both east and west roof pitches. A gablehead brick chimneystack with octagonal clay cans projects from the street elevation.

The building houses fixed printing and type-setting machinery dating from around 1893 to around 1960. Access from the street elevation is via two doorways: the central doorway leads to the offices located to the front (north) of the plan, whilst the left doorway opens directly into the full-height, top-lit printshop floor which occupies most of the centre of the ground floor. This printshop is flanked by galleried offices and paper storage at either end of the building. To the rear (south) are a paper store and boiler room which includes a type foundry.

The printing machinery collection includes a Wharfedale printing machine by John Kelley & Co of Otley (the earliest, dating to around 1893), a Demy printing machine by Furnival & Co from September 1927, a Newspaper Folder by T H Pullman & Son of Glasgow from 1934, a Heidelberg Automatic Platen machine (Beevers & Son Edinburgh) from 1950, and a Vertical Miehle printing machine (American) from 1960. Hand-set type cases complete with various sizes and fonts, a proof press with hand-operated roller, two Intertype hot metal typesetting machines (American, from 1920 and 1951), an Arab Original printing machine originally operated by treadle and now electrified, and a manual guillotine with 30-inch blade are also in situ. The Wharfedale was used to print the local newspaper 'The Blairie' at 4,000 per week and was last used for election posters in 2001. The Intertype machines were set for single-column 8-point news and advertisements respectively. The newspaper folder was last used in 1978 for the final edition of The Blairie. The Heidelberg Automatic Platen bears a plaque inscribed 'A century of Heidelberg Printing Machines 1850-1950' and had normal production capacity of 2,500-3,000 per hour.