Dreel Halls, Anstruther

Dreel Halls, Anstruther, Fife

Dreel Halls is a landmark heritage building in Fife, Scotland consisting of events and activities spaces run by community organisation Anstruther Improvements Association. The building comprises a Category A-listed former church and Category C-listed former town hall, located within Anstruther Conservation area.

The building is situated in a challenging spot, with an unforgiving marine environment and a roadside location that creates frequent splashback with dirty, salty, gritty water.

The building received a new lime render finish with lime wash in 2013, but it became apparent that this would not provide enough protection and resilience to the building, as part of it needed redecorating within two years.

In 2019, Anstruther Improvements Association embarked on a major programme of work to the building and their architect suggested four options to consider for external redecoration.

They travelled around Fife and Angus to view examples of these four options on site, speaking to the owners and managers of the buildings at length, and decided that KEIM seemed to offer the best solution.

Kate Anstruther of Anstruther Improvements Association said “It was particularly useful to have KEIM’s Senior Colourist, Nicola Young, provide us with a selection of sample panels in different locations on the building to enable us to choose a colour and finish. The works involved pre-treatment with KEIM Algicid, KEIM Silan Primer to the bottom of the walls to provide protection from splashback dirt and deterioration, and KEIM I.G. Primer to prevent iron oxide leaching.

The decoration was a coat of KEIM Royalan Grob diluted with KEIM Royalan Dilution, a coat of coloured KEIM Royalan and a finishing coat of KEIM Design Lasur. Jim Neville, the decorator who carried out the work, is exceptional and we are absolutely delighted with the results. The building looks fantastic and is a source of great pride to our community.”