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Summary

Description

James M MacLaren (London), dated 1889, incorporating Old Breadalbane Academy (circa 1840) at rear. Broad-gabled 3-bay, single and 2-storey, L-plan Town Hall in Free Style with H H Richardson inspiration and with loggia and oversized ventilator. Harled with rock-faced red sandstone margins and quoins and polished dressings; squared and snecked local chlorite-slate rubble to rear. Cill course. Voussoirs; stone mullions.

MAIN HALL:

W (ENTRANCE) ELEVATION: quadrant walls flanking broad-gabled elevation with 3-arched loggia with decorative ironwork gates, carved stone (see Notes) immediately to left and set-back deeply-voussoired doorway with 2-leaf vertically-panelled timber doors, windows in flanking bays; horizontal 5-light window set into plain-friezed panel in gablehead.

S ELEVATION: tall single storey, 6-bay elevation with deep multi-band base course of red rock-faced rubble abutting broad cill course. 2-storey bays of Lesser Hall projecting at left (see below). 4 large transomed bipartite windows to centre and left bays, large slate-hung ogee-roofed ridge ventilator with decorative cast-iron weathervane to centre above; catslide roof over narrow projecting stair tower in penultimate bay to right with small square window to 1st and 2nd stages, and timber door with cast-iron lamp bracket on return to left; outer right bay with single stage piend-roofed projection.

N ELEVATION: largely mirrors S elevation.

Leaded multi-pane timber-transomed windows. Graded grey slates. Overhanging eaves with decorative bargeboarding.

LESSER HALL:

W (ENTRANCE) ELEVATION: 4-bay, single and 2-storey elevation. Advanced gable to right with large window to ground and smaller window to 1st floor, carved panel (see Notes) immediately to left at ground and steps up to angled doorpiece with 2-leaf timber door at outer right. 2 bays to centre each with large window at ground and smaller 1st floor window breaking into stone dormerhead. Single storey broad-gabled bay with large bipartite window to left.

S ELEVATION: variety of elements including single storey harled bays projecting at ground, louvred opening in set-back gablehead to right and piended bay to left.

E (REAR) ELEVATION: 2-storey bay to left with window to right and small porch to left at ground, altered window in gablehead; single storey piended bay with 2 windows to right.

12- and 24-pane glazing patterns in timber sash and case windows. Grey slates. Banded and coped square-section ashlar stacks (some grouped) with some cans. Overhanging eaves with plain bargeboarding.

INTERIOR: gallery and hammerbeam roof to Greater Hall. Plain cornices, panelled timber shutters and soffits to Lesser Hall.

BOUNDARY WALLS: rock-faced rubble quadrant walls and random rubble boundary walls.

Statement of Special Interest

Thought to be erected on the site of 'The Black House', the original home of the Menzies of Weem when they came here from Nithsdale more than 700 years ago. The earlier building, situated to the side and rear of the Town Hall, was probably established by the 'Society for the Propagation of Christian Knowledge in Scotland', becoming Breadalbane Academy and run by the Free Church in the late 1840s. The site was presented to the town, by the third Marquis of Breadlbane, to commemorate Aberfeldy's erection to Burghal status in 1887. Work commenced in 1889 and the Town Hall Buildings were opened on 5th December, 1891. Accommodation included Club Room of the Comrades of the Great War, Societies Room, Commissioners Room and Public Library with Reading Room. Haynes notes that this "exceptionally avant-garde piece of Free Style" was "surely influenced in its rubbly Romanesque arcade by published designs of great American architect H H Richardson". While "Art Nouveau .... [was] presaged in [the] eccentrically exaggerated ventilator". The carved stone to the W elevation of the Greater Hall is worded "THE FOUNDATION STONE OF THIS HALL WAS LAID ON THE 21ST SEPTEMBER 1889 BY SIR DONALD CURRIE KEMP MP", and that to the W elevation of the Lesser Hall worded "THIS SITE AND THE ORIGINAL BUILDINGS WERE PRESENTED TO THE TOWN OF ABERFELDY BY THE MOST HONOURABLE GAVIN 3RD MARQUIS OF BREADALBANE ANNO DOMINI 1887".

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