Chalmers Hall
Date 30 March 2010
Event ID 914848
Category Management
Type Site Management
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/914848
4-storey and later attic, classically-detailed former hotel, now university hall of residence with shops to ground floor. Painted ashlar, slate Mansard roof. Shopfronts to ground floor, modern at no 1A, pilastered and round-headed at no 2 High Street and nos 2 and 4 Castle Street, plain 19th century design at no 6 Castle Street; continuous cill band to 2nd floor, consoled and corniced balustraded parapet with ball-finialled dies and pyramidal angle dies; 2- and 4-pane timber sash and case windows, architraved to 1st floor with sculpted round-headed pediments, shouldered to 2nd floor with consoled cills, architraved to 3rd floor; corniced wallhead stack to High Street, ridge stacks elsewhere.
Castle Street was opened from 1785, the second street to be formed from High Street/ Nethergate to the Harbour, and this building appears to date from near that time. The building is shown in its original state in Kay's 'The Executive' as an hotel, eventually becoming the Royal British Hotel until its rebirth in 1965 as Chalmers Hall of Residence of the University of Dundee, named after James Chalmers (1782-1853), inventor of the adhesive postage stamp and whose shop was situated at the adjoining 10 Castle Street. (Historic Environment Scotland List Entry)
