Redevelopment of The Oven
22nd April 2021
Midsteeple Quarter recently announced a huge step forward for the regeneration of Dumfries High Street, with the redevelopment work of ‘The Oven’ (135-139 High Street) which commenced on Monday 8th March.
The Oven is the first in a group of underused buildings on Dumfries High Street which Midsteeple Quarter have identified as a site for their bold initiative to see local people developing their own High Street as a contemporary living, working, socialising, learning and enterprising hub – a new vision of Dumfries town centre based on local views and aspirations. The former Baker’s Oven building was transferred into community ownership through the Midsteeple Quarter Project in November 2018. Since taking ownership of the building, Midsteeple Quarter have updated the ground floor space which has been used as a space for events, pop-up activities, exhibitions and workshops, used by local organisations including Spring Fling, D-LUX Festival of Light and The Stove Network.
The vision for the redevelopment of The Oven has emerged over a number of years of continued community engagement programmes carried out by Midsteeple Quarter and The Stove Network. The community of Dumfries have been the key element in driving that process and we are proud to be taking the project forward on their behalf and with their support. The community have also input into the detailed design of the redeveloped and new building through various consultation events and workshops held in 2019 and has developed with the professional advice of our expert design team including our architect, construction consultant, engineer and heritage archaeologist.
In January 2020 planning and conservation area (for the demolitions) applications for the proposals were submitted to the Council for approval and again the public were involved in the consultations as part of that process, including the community council, neighbouring properties and anyone who wished to comment. No objections were raised to the proposals. Furthermore, the county archaeologist, Historic Environment Scotland and the Council’s Heritage officer all approved the demolition and planning permission and conservation area consents were granted in August 2020. A Building warrant for demolition works was also granted and we have all the statutory consents required and are legally entitled to progress with the demolition.
The plans will see the site developed into seven new flats which will be available at affordable rents, one of which will be an artistic residency studio/flat. The street level space will be used as an enterprise space for start-up businesses and social enterprise, as well as continuing to support the community enterprise sector locally. The existing façade of the High Street building will be retained as an important element of the character of the Dumfries townscape. While the remainder of the building (1980s) will be extensively remodelled to create the first new inhabited Close buildings in Dumfries in living memory.
After a delayed start due to Covid-19, redevelopment work began on Monday 8th March, with construction planned to begin around July/August. During the redevelopment work, Midsteeple Quarter are working continuously with neighbours and surrounding properties to minimise disruption throughout the duration of the construction period. We are also being incredibly sensitive to the history of the building and have ensured that appropriate research was carried out prior to the demolition. The main building (which you can see from the High Street) is a steel and concrete building with a reproduction Victorian façade, which was rebuilt in the 1980s following a fire. The rear studio building was marked as a ruin on an Ordinance Survey Town Plan of 1847. In the later Town Plan of 1893, the building is shown as occupied and roofed, and in the first half of the 19th century is shown as roofed, disused and decayed.
We have been working with an archaeologist who has confirmed that the lower and gable elements of the former studio building retained some stone, potentially from an earlier building, but the rest of the building was of brick, indicating it had been rebuilt in the late 19th Century. All of this has been recorded by photographs and a written report by the consultant archaeologist, Rebecca Shaw, which you can read below (with images):
“Initial Historic Building Recording works were undertaken prior to the demolition of the detached two-storey sandstone building located to the rear of 135-139 High Street, Dumfries. The lower section of the demolished structure dates to the Georgian Era and the roofline for the earlier Georgian structure was clearly visible on the interior faces of the current gables. The upper extension was added in the second half of the nineteenth century. Further archaeological works involving exploratory trial trenching, will be carried out in the coming months to establish if earlier medieval remains survive below the existing footprint.”
A lot of work has gone into getting to this stage and we are grateful to the funders and stakeholders who continue to support this endeavour, which would not be possible without the active involvement of the people of Dumfries over many years - the community has been involved all the way through this process. This has formed a vision for the future of the Midsteeple Quarter and specifically for the redevelopment of the Baker’s Oven building and we are thrilled to see this vision now become a reality.