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Summary

Description

Dated 1876, conversion to public house 1905; later alterations and additions. 2-storey with attic, 4-bay Baronial building on ground falling to SW. Polished ashlar at ground; droved ashlar at 1st floor and attic; red sandstone bands; whinstone rubble with stugged and droved red sandstone dressings to rear. Base course; flush red sandstone band at half-height at ground, 1st floor and attic; rope moulded course below cornice between ground and 1st with corbelled skewputts to outer; moulded eaves course, acting as cill course to attic windows breaking eaves; bracketted cornice to each window at 1st floor. Steeply gabled dormerheads breaking eaves in raised panels.

SE ELEVATION: 2-leaf panelled door to centre at ground with consoled steep pediment above, with ball ornamentation and square, carved plaque to centre; mask to rope-moulded cornice; date plaque at 1st floor above with hoodmould. Window to each floor of inner bay to left; gabled dormerhead to attic window, breaking eaves; rose ashlar finial and carved plaque to dormerhead. Round-arched pend-opening with rope-moulded hoodmould at ground of bay to outer left; window at 1st floor above and at attic, breaking eaves and with gabled dormerhead, ashlar fleuron finial and monograph carved to dormerhead. Window at ground of bay to inner right with window at 1st floor above. Panelled door with letterbox plate glass fanlight above in bay to outer right with window at 1st floor above. Crowstepped gable spanning bays to inner and outer right with bipartite window, breaking eaves and with consoled cornice-hoodmould; round plaque to gablehead above; ashlar thistle finial.

NW ELEVATION: carved animal's head set in gable above pend-entrance.

Predomiantly plate glass in timber sash and case windows. Slate roof. Ashlar-coped stacks. Crowstepped ashlar skews.

INTERIOR: simple interior with good Victorian plasterwork and later fittings. Small lobby with half-glazed timber door; inner hall with central two-leaf glazed timber door (now fixed closed) etched with 'Wines' and 'Spirits'; doorways to left and right doors to bar. Compartmented ceiling with deeply-moulded cornice with Scottish thistle frieze. Timber-panelled U-shaped bar counter; small plain gantry. Rear snugs, that to right lined with timber boarding. Stair at rear leads to large room at first floor.

Statement of Special Interest

This is a fine Scottish Baronial building with good detailing situated in a prominent position at the West Port adjacent to the market square. It was constructed as a public meeting hall and was built for the burgh as it bears the coats of arms of Selkirk above the door (a female figure holding a child and a shield with the lion rampant at her feet) and the motto 'De Selkirk Sigilum Comune'. It was converted to a public house in 1905. The right hand door on the front elevation originally gave access to a corridor which ran to a staircase at the rear of the building and thus to a large room on the upper floor. This passageway was incorporated into the public bar at some point in the twentieth century. The upper floors appear to have been occupied as flats until at least the 1930s.

It is interesting that two other fine Baronial buildings were constructed in Selkirk at about the same time: the Sheriff Court by David Rhind of 1868-70 and the Public Library (originally the jail) which was restored and Baronialsed in 1888. The Baronial style was clearly associated with status of the burgh and perhaps with its historical past.

The interior of the public house has been much changed but retains some unusual features such as the metal fly-screens on the front windows and the fine plasterwork.

Turner Simpson and Stevenson suggest the carved animal's head originally came from the old Market Cross (which was removed in 1765).

List description updated as part of the Public Houses Thematic Study 2007-08.

References

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