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Summary

Description

Built between 1899 and 1901 and designed by R M Christie. Two-storey, three-bay, rectangular-plan, gabled Jacobethan town hall with crowstepped gables. Bull-faced red sandstone with yellow sandstone ashlar dressings to principal (west) elevation, rubble with stugged yellow sandstone dressings to sides and rear. Long and short quoins, base course, first floor continuous cill string course.

West (principal) elevation: three-bay with finialled gabled bay to left. Round-arched entrance to centre with fluted flanking pilasters surmounted by moulded archway with hoodmould; outer section with 'BURGH CHAMBERS' carved in raised letters; wrought-iron lantern bracket, replacement two-leaf panelled timber door with fanlight. Pair of round-arched windows with continuous hoodmould and cill band to left; mullioned bipartite with large central mullion and hoodmould with raised semicircular panel at centre to right. Chimneyhead gable over single window at centre of first floor. Mullioned tripartite with hoodmould to left, mullioned bipartite window breaking-eaves in finialled gablehead to right.

East elevation: harled, 20th century lean-to additions at ground. Central stair window to first floor; two windows to left; to right.

South elevation: outer wall of former jail (demolished 1963) projects to ground floor, two narrow inserted windows to right. Carved stone panel with moulded architrave bearing coat-of-arms of John Chisholm of Cromlix to left multi-pane timber frame windows (some with top hoppers) to ground floor of principal (west) elevation, replacement PVCu windows to first floor. Grey slate roof. Coped gablehead stacks. Cast-iron rainwater goods with plain hoppers.

Interior: geometric tiles to entrance vestibule. Otherwise ground floor largely modernised. Timber balustrade to staircase intact only to upper sections. Principal first floor room ('Marriage Room') refurbished early-20th century, two timber fireplace surrounds and Art Nouveau dado.

Statement of Special Interest

A small civic building incorporating an eclectic array of architectural details. Loosely speaking the ground floor is more Italianate and the upper floor more Scots Baronial. The building is significant in terms of Dunblane's civic history. The original town hall or tollbooth was erected adjacent to the main cathedral entrance in 1650 and demolished in 1842 when the town jail was built on the site adjacent to the Burgh Chambers. The Dundee Courier and Dundee Advertiser, in April 1899, record the meeting of Dunblane Commissioners on the proposed extent of the municipal buildings to be built on the site. The building opened in 1901 (Creative Dunblane).

The site of the jail was formerly occupied by the town house of the lairds of Cromlix and this is where the stone plaque with the coat of arms now built into the south wall of the burgh chambers came from. The jail was demolished in 1963 and the plaque preserved in its present location. The coat-of-arms was taken from a former town house of the lairds of Cromlix that stood on the adjacent site prior to being replaced in 1842 by the now demolished jail.

Listed building record updated in 2022.

References

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