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Former engineering buildings, now in use as Council offices and industrial buildings, designed by Louis Christian Mullgardt in 1903-06 with later additions. The engineering building complex comprises a two-storey, nine-bay rectangular-plan office block, with a two-gabled, rectangular-plan harled former machine workshop to the rear. There is a slightly later single-storey, four-bay rectangular-plan former workshop to the south of the office block. The buildings are set on a prominent corner site within larger industrial works complex. They are constructed from squared, coursed and tooled Pitsligo granite, with Rora granite ashlar dressings, with a base course, and band course to some of the buildings. The ground floor has segmental-arched, keystoned and mullioned tripartite windows, and there are shouldered, gabled breaking-eaves dormers. The former machine shop has a distinctive glazed and timber boarded sawtoothed roof. The principal (west) elevation has nine bays to the office block and four to the workshop. There is an off-centre advanced two-bay shouldered entrance gable, with buttressed corners and a central pier. Within this are paired entrances, with segmental arched and keystoned fanlights and deep-set later entrance doors. The workshop has a band course and linear glazed clerestory. The north elevation has a three-bay gable, with tripartite windows at the ground floor and a pair of flat-arched windows at the first floor, with a relieving arch above. The western end of the north elevation has the machine shop. It has two gables with a timber eaves course, a clerestory formed by a sawtooth roof, and later flat-arched entrance opening to the left. There are predominantly plate glass in timber sash and case windows. The pitched roof has grey slates, with some rooflights to the eastern end of the nine-bay range, straight ashlar skews, and cast-iron rainwater goods. The interior, as seen by HES in 2011, has later 20th and early 21st century remodelling and subdivision of the office section. The open-plan former machine shop has a steel structure with original steel columns and steel roof trusses. Around the site there are low granite boundary walls, with chamfered copes and topped with cast iron railings. The square-plan gatepiers have rock-faced bases and pyramidal capping, and support two-leaf cast-iron gates to the south opening. A standing building survey was carried out by Cameron Archaeology in January 2021 and at least four phases of development were recorded. The original saw-toothed roof machine shop is a rectangular structure, to the east of which are contemporary rail tracks and a turntable. Subsequent phases of modification included construction of adjoining buildings to east and south elevations (later removed), changes to windows and doorways and removal of glazing from the eaves of the north gable. Several windows were later blocked with cement blocks and new doorways created and a cement block structure was added to the southwest corner of the interior.
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Historic Environment Records (HER)