Gardyne's Land

The project now known as Gardyne's Land was in fact made up from a complex of five buildings situated within the Dundee city centre Outstanding Conservation Area and straddling three of Dundee's historic closes. The majority of these buildings had sat empty and neglected for almost forty years. At the centre of the complex sits the A listed merchants' house from which the project took its name, dated c1560 and first recorded as being owned by one John Gardyne, a name thought to derive from the old Scots term for garden. The central building is surrounded by two further town houses c1640 and c1790, a Victorian retail outlet c1865 and a billiard hall c1820. Surviving original features included a panelled room dating from the 1720s, and workshops for a watch maker and a bag pipe maker.

Using grants from the Architectural Heritage Fund and Scottish Enterprise Tayside, supplemented with some of the capital realised from the sale of the Sea Captain,s house and Calender works, the Trust embarked on an in depth feasibility study of the properties which included a preliminary structural survey and historical research which was undertaken by students of the European Urban Conservation Masters course at the University of Dundee. The study was completed in November 1996 and lengthy negotiations to acquire the central core of buildings began in earnest in 1997.

The original feasibility study had been based around a proposed end use of a conversion into flats as a means of determining the probable costs. It established that a predicted conservation deficit of over £1million could be expected. That meant that there would need to be a considerable reliance on public funds to make the project work. It was around this time that funding bodies were increasingly taking into account such issues as economic regeneration, community involvement, education and access before they would fund projects and it soon became clear that the proposed domestic use would no longer be viable. A number of further uses were considered but it was eventually agreed that as Dundee was the only major Scottish City without a youth hostel an approach should be made to the Scottish Youth Hostels Association (SYHA) who, after a period of hard negotiation, agreed to become the end user.

The three main buildings were at the time in the ownership of the Prudential but rented to the Sears Properties Group on a long term, full repairing lease. However, Sears had only ever been concerned with the ground floor retail premises and as mentioned above some of the upper floors had been empty for almost forty years. This had resulted in a serious deterioration of the fabric of the buildings due to water ingress and pigeon infestation. It also meant that Sears were in breach of their contract with regards to the repair and upkeep of the buildings. As it had been estimated that it would cost the Sears Group somewhere in the region of £400,000 to remedy the situation they were extremely keen to relinquish their lease. In 2000 Sears surrendered their lease of the upper floors of the buildings back to the Prudential but retained their lease of the ground floors and the basement and first floor storage area of number 75 the High Street. The Prudential in turn sold the remaining parts of the building to TBPT for a pound and the Sears Group presented the Trust with an endowment of £282,000 to undertake emergency repairs.

In April of the same year planning permission was granted for a 'Change of use' of the vacant upper floors into a youth hostel along with listed building consent to carry out urgent and necessary repairs which also included the removal of hazardous asbestos and pigeon guano from the buildings. The repair work commenced in late September of that year under the direction Simpson and Brown architects. During these repairs two rooms were fitted out to be used as temporary office space for the Trust.

In November of 2000 the Trust was awarded a Facade Enhancement Grant of £36,000 from Dundee City Council which allowed them to undertake a significant amount of work on the High Street elevations of the buildings. This included the instillation of new cast iron gutters, down-pipes and fittings, the replacement of defective timber safe lintels, the repair and replacement of timber sash and case windows, the re-bedding of unstable masonry, the removal of loose paint and redundant cabling and the introduction of bird damage prevention measures.

By July of 2001 the first phase of the project was in full swing with gaining public support due to extremely good local press coverage. At this time the Scottish Youth Hostels Association indicated that they did not think that existing properties would be large enough to accommodate a youth hostel so to make the project viable the Trust needed to acquire the second and third floors and attic space of an adjoining High Street property. The second floor and attic space were in the ownership of Northern Rock with the Western Club, a venerable Dundee institution, sandwiched in between. This additional property was valued at £55,000. At this time the proposed valuation of Gardyne's Land as a completed Youth Hostel was in the region of £336,000 with the estimated project costs standing at around £4,143,448.

Phase one of the project was completed by the February of 2002 at a cost of £291,892 and the Trust lodge an application for Stage Two funding with the Heritage Lottery Fund in March of the same year. In September the buildings were opened up to the public on 'Doors Open Days' with around 1,800 visitors passing through the doors over the weekend event.

It was also around this time that the Trust received further grant aid from Historic Scotland and the European Regional Development Fund totalling £173,000. This allowed the Trust acquire the necessary adjoining property from Northern Rock for £37,000 and an agreement was entered into with the Western Club stating that the Trust would purchase and fit out suitable alternative accommodation for the club allowing them to move out and a straight forward exchange of deeds would go ahead.

Just when the Trust, along with the various stakeholders, were feeling confident that the project was more than viable and was certain to be a success the Scottish Youth Hostels Association decided to throw the first spanner into the works. In February of 2003 they announced their withdrawal from the project stating that after long and careful consideration they had come to the conclusion that Dundee was not a big enough visitor centre to warrant the presence of such a facility. This left the trust with only three month to find an alternative hostel operator for the project or all pledged grants would have been lost.

In April HOPPO, an independent Edinburgh based hostel operator, agreed to take the place of SYHA as the new end user and their professionalism brought a new energy to the project. But by the end of May the failure to find suitable alternative premises for the Western Club was threatening to seriously hold up the progress of the project.

The Trust was awarded a Stage One Approval Grant of £180,000 from the Heritage Lottery fund in June 2003 of which TBPT needed to raise a further £60,000 in match funding. This allowed project to progress to the tender stage. In total the Trust was able to contribute a total of £150,000 to the over all project which it raised through donations from business', individuals and other charitable trusts. Further positive publicity for the project was generated in September of that year with the high profile visit of HRH the Prince of Wales to Gardyne's Land but by the end of October a suitable new home for the Western Club had still not been agreed on and the situation was holding up urgently needed repair work. In November the Trust submitted its Stage Two application to the Heritage Lottery Fund and the value of the completed project was reappraised to be £384,500.

Planning permission for a change of use for the remaining buildings into a hostel and cafe bar and the insertion of a new stairway and lift was granted in the February of 2004 and four contractors were invited to tender for the contract for phase two restoration with the intention of work beginning in June of that year. Listed Building consent followed towards the end of March. In April Dundee City Council granted the Trust £16,500 towards the project which was followed by the offer of £1.5 million funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund.

In early June Gardyne's was re-opened to the public for two days to allow final viewing of the buildings before their total closer for the commencement of the restoration of the complex. Later that month a possible new venue for the Western Club was located in the Murraygate area of the city centre with an estimated value of £90,000. The Western Club agreed to move but not until the new premises had been refurbished. The Trust received an Acquisition Grant of £192,000 from Historic Scotland in the July of 2004 which it used to buy the Murraygate property, at a cost of £110,000, and began its refurbishment.

A preferred contractor was selected from the four tenders but just as contracts were about to be signed the Trust discovered that they were unable to let the contract. The project was awarded a European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) grant of £780,000. It was found that a condition attached to grant required immediate repayment of the total amount in the event of anything going wrong. Although all involved in the project believed that this was highly unlikely to happen the Scottish Office Auditors were insisting on a guarantee for the amount. The only group involved in the project able to provide the necessary guarantee were Dundee City council who were reluctant to do so.

The Council eventually agreed to take up this role but were then forced to consider what their position would be if the project ran into difficulties during the later stages. This broadly meant that the Council could end up paying back a considerable amount of money and the building remaining half finished or the Council having to pay out even more to complete the works. The legal debates became increasingly protracted and drawn out during which time the Trust were in serious danger of becoming bankrupt. The council finally committed fully to the project in December 2004.

However, early in 2005 a further impasse, this time between the council and the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF), threatened to derail the project. HLF announced that they also required a guarantee for their grant of £1.5 million in case the project failed. A sum that the Council were determined not to be liable for. Eventually, after vigorous lobbying from various trade organisations and academics within the city, a way forward was found. In April of 2005, with the support of all funders, the project was handed over in its entirety to the Council who, with the Trust acting as conservation advisors, were to manage it through to its completion. The contracts to commence the second phase of works were finally signed and work began on the 9th of July 2005.

The Western Club vacated their rooms within the Gardyne's complex on the completion of the refurbishment of the Murraygate property in the October of 2006 allowing work to start on that part of the building. The whole project was completed in the September of 2007 and the hostel opened for business in May 2008 twelve years after the Trust first became involved with the property. Since that time the project has received three prestigious national planning awards.