Municipal Buildings, 2-8 Buccleuch Street, Dalkeith, Dalkeith, Midlothian

Entry Name: Municipal Buildings, 2-8 Buccleuch Street, Dalkeith

Listing Name: 2-8 (Even Nos) Buccleuch Street, Municipal Buildings

Listing Date: 30 June 1983

Category: B

Source: Historic Scotland

Source ID: 360246

Historic Scotland Designation Reference: LB24334

Building Class: Cultural

Also known as: Dalkeith, 2-8 Buccleuch Street, Municipal Buildings

ID on this website: 200360246

Location: Dalkeith

County: Midlothian

Town: Dalkeith

Electoral Ward: Dalkeith

Traditional County: Midlothian

Tagged with: Architectural structure

Description

James Alison, 1882; extended by Charles Henry Greig, 1908. 2-storey Baronial corner building, 3-bay to Eskbank Road, 3-bay to Buccleuch Street and chamfered corner; 2-storey, 5-bay ensuite addition to E with common ridge line. Stugged squared and snecked rubble; ashlar dressings. Side elevations random rubble; rear elevations brick with ashlar lintels and cills. Base course. 1882 building: string course between floors, stepped over windows on N elevation. Roll-moulded surrounds to windows with chamfered cills. 1908 addition: moulded course between floors; chamfered margins.

NW (CORNER) ELEVATION: cavetto moulded shouldered doorway; rope moulded surround, stepped over Dalkeith Brugh's coat of arms; 2-leaf panelled door. Corbelled turret at 1st floor; bowed tripartite window; heavy machicolated course and eaves course; conical roof and weathervane.

W (ESKBANK ROAD) ELEVATION: regular fenestration at ground. Gabled corbelled advanced panel to centre bay at 1st floor, segmentally-arched over window at ground; tripartite window; circular clock in moulded surround in gablehead; gablet crowstepped and thistle finialled dormerhead. 2 elongated arrowslits in outer bays at 1st floor.

N (BUCCLEUCH STREET) ELEVATION: semicircular-arched window in bay to left at ground, with rope hoodmould and knot label stops. Bipartite window at ground and 1st floors at centre. Regular fenestration in remaining bays. Roll detail to dormerhead skews (finial missing) at centre; shield dated "1882" in gablehead. Moulded triangular dormerheads to outer bays, with crescent finials.

N (BUCCLEUCH STREET) ELEVATION, 1908 ADDITION: 5-bay, grouped 2-3, 3 bays to right of elevation: door out-of-line to left in bay to left, and out-of-line to right in bay to right; corniced roll-moulded surrounds, panels above bearing Scotts of Buccleuchs' coat-of-arms in swan neck pediments; 5 stair windows between left and right bays at ground, stepped up at centre; ogeed lintels; keystone linking centre window to string course. Drinking fountain embedded in wall below centre stair window; moulded string course at ground stepped over recessed drinking fountain. Dormerheaded tripartite windows at 1st floor to left and right; dormerheads coped-crowstepped, shield bearing 2 stars and motto "Mak' siccar" to left dormerhead, shield bearing 3 stars and a heart and motto "Forward" to right dormerhead. Bowed balcony with decorative wrought-iron balustrade supporting flagstaff to window at 1st floor at centre. 2 bays to left slightly recessed: 2-leaf door to left, chamfered margin, stop-chamfered at base, panel above inscribed "Municipal Buildings Erected 1908, R Handyside, Provost"; door flanked by small windows. Bipartite window at ground and 1st floors to right. Dormerheaded tripartite window at 1st floor to left; shield bearing 3 escallops to gablet-skewputted dormerhead.

E ELEVATION: gabled. Adjoined to modern tenement, Nos 12 and 14 Buccleuch Street, slightly recessed to left.

S ELEVATION: gabled.

E and S rear re-entrant elevations fenestrated.

Plate glass glazing pattern in sash and case windows; stained glass in 5 stair windows, with Burgh coat-of-arms on centre window. Crowstepped gables; crowstepped skews of original E gable at juncation with addition. Coped stacks, gablehead to E and S, ridge to addition and former gablehead stack at junction with addition. Grey slates. Moulded eaves gutter. Some original rainwater goods, piercing string course on addition.

Statement of Interest

Built at a cost of £592, the Municipal Buildings were the first commission of James Alison, a native of Dalkeith. The first meeting of the Burgh Commissioners in the new Municipal Buildings was held on 9 October 1882. Built at a cost of circa £2000, Charles Henry Greig's extension provided accommodation for the Town Council, School Board and Parish Council; an opening dinner was held on 24 April 1908. The decorative emblems on the building are taken from Dalkeith Burgh's coat-of-arms.

External Links

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