Balmore, Dundee

Community pub that still retains an over 100 year old gantry and remains of what locals call ‘the bully’ (an off sales?).

At the base of a four-storey stone tenement with distinct wooden ground floor frontage painted red. On the Balmore Street side there are four stained glass windows with in the centre of them painted Scottish countryside scenes and one of a harbour. Sadly, they are difficult to fully appreciate from the inside as a shelf has been fixed across part of the them. On the Dura Street side are two more similar windows but the centre panels are “Wines” and “Spirits” black on white wording only. Further along to the right are three narrower windows also with more stained windows.

The corner and right-hand exterior doors lead to the L-shaped public bar implying it was once divided into two; the left hand door on Dura Street leads into a vestibule and beyond to a passage which leads to the lounge bar. On the left hand side of the passage is a dado of old panelling and close to the lounge door is a plain mirror, an ornately carved pillar with capital holding up an entablature (?) that almost reaches the ceiling with a ?dog teeth? cornice topped with a tiny version of the double broken pediment on the gantry. The mahogany top section continues across the top of the lounge door and meets the gantry. On the right hand side of the passageway there is a near full height screen of two bays with colourful stained panels above a plain dado that looks post-war work. Then there is a small old bar counter i.e. matching the main counter front, and above it an arch shaped opening in the partition. Locals say this area just before the door into the lounge was called the ‘Bully’ which sounds like it was an off sales?

The bare wooden floored public bar retains an over 100 year old gantry facing two sides and curves in the middle. It is of five bays with carved pillars holding up the shelves, a row of mirrors in the central part of the upper section, and in bays one and four a carved frieze, and topped off here are, unusually, double broken pediments. The lower part of the gantry has carved pillasters holding up the shelves, some cupboards and retains half of the lower part (the other half lost to fridges). The panelled bar counter which looks old curves in the middle and on the right. It has pilasters, a number of match strikers just below the top and two broken water taps. The partition around the dart area is modern. All around the room is old dado panelling and a modest cornice. Fixed seating is modern. No sign of a fireplace. The lounge looks like it was refitted in the 1980s? but does have a colourful (modern) stained glass window.