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Summary

Description

1855 to circa 1880. Large grain whisky distillery complex of sandstone rubble-built buildings, some given Baronial detailing. Slate roofs. Windows shuttered or barred.

From E to W: DUTY-FREE WAREHOUSES NOS. 3 AND 9: John McLachlan, 1887. Tall 4-storey bonded warehouse.

N ELEVATION: squared and stugged sandstone. 4 crow- stepped gables with gun-loops in gableheads, 2 gables to left advanced (6 bays deep); 2 bays to each gable. 2 gables to W set back (outer W gable set back slightly further). Segmental-arched ground floor doors and 2nd floor windows; 3rd floor oculi.

W ELEVATION: 18 bays; similar to above.

E ELEVATION: blank, rubble with ashlar coping to raised wallhead.

POWER HOUSE: 2-storey. Situated in re-entrant angle of bond with 2-bay arched-windowed W gable. Ridge ventilator. Modern brick-built office adjoins S elevation.

CHIMNEY STALK: circa 1870-1880, landmark exactly aligned with Shandwick Place. Circular section, approximately 300 feet tall, top formerly as flared funnel, now reduced slightly and rebuilt in yellow brick.

PATENT STILL HOUSE: dated 1855 in armorial. Tall rectangular-plan building with 3 arched windows at upper level and curved sheet metal-clad roof with ridge ventilator. Housed single Coffey Still.

INTERIOR: mash house and tun room.

MALTINGS TO W: 5-storey 6-bay , rubble-built with piended, sawtooth roofs; 2 end bays to W altered, kiln roof. Granaries to rear altered internally from multi- storey to 6 silos. Further maltings to W demolished circa 1983.

OFFICE (TO FRONT): 2-storey, with rear to railway line. 3-bay E elevation. Piend roofs.

DUTY-FREE WAREHOUSE NO. 6: 3-storey bond.

N ELEVATION: 8 Baronial gabled bays, 2 windows to each bay. E gable advanced with conical-roofed stair turret in re-entrant angle.

Statement of Special Interest

Built by Graham Menzies & Co, 1855 merged with DCL 1884. Duty Free Warehouses Nos 3 and 9 were described by Barnard as 'a new lofty Gothic structure, a notable object from the railway as you approach Haymarket Station'. For many years the largest or second largest distillery in Scotland. In 1887 employed 220 and produced 2,000,000 gallons. It was considered by Barnard that 'in all respects it may be called the model distillery of Europe, as it contains every improvement of machinery and new patent known in distilling and fully justifies the appellation'. Still house housed a single Coffey still.

The best preserved of Scotland's big grain whisky distilleries, having changed little externally since the 1880s; notable particularly for its complete still house, claimed to have held the biggest patent still in Europe, and its chimney, amongst the biggest of Victorian chimneys surviving in Scotland. The distillery closed in 1988.

References

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