Dorran Construction
of Perth
During the 1950’s, the Hull construction firm of R. G. Tarran, builder of the Tarran Prefab, adapted the former dyeworks of Pullars of Perth to produce the Dorran House, a single-storey bungalow built from precast panels.
The Dorran system consists of storey height precast panels which are 16 inches wide, which seems an odd width for a structural module, but we now live in a world which has the luxury of setting out in metric, usually on multiples and fractions of 3000mm.
Whether Dorran licensed the system from Tarran, or the company was a direct subsidiary, isn’t obvious – but during the 1950’s, they sold to the public sector with houses for the Forestry Commission in outlying parts of the Highlands, small developments of social housing in rural counties like Argyll and Caithness, and even domestic accommodation at RAF Saxa Vord on Shetland.
Dorran Construction later offered a range of bungalows to private buyers; the houses had couthy names like The Glen Shean, The Glen Varloch, The Glen Frugart and The Glen Clova. By the 1960’s they fabricated around 10 houses each week at their precast factory in Perth, and a total of 2500 had been erected by 1962.