Description

John Dick Peddie, dated 1857. 3-storey, 5-bay, square-plan, piend-roofed, Classical Palazzo, former bank forming part of terrace, with round-arched windows, consoled canopies to entrances and deep stone-bracketed eaves. Pale grey sandstone ashlar, with black slate cladding (see NOTES) to base and to ground-floor plinths; rendered to rear. Base course; floreate frieze below corniced 1st-floor cill course; Greek key frieze below corniced 2nd-floor cill course; stone-bracketed eaves cornice with rosettes. Rusticated quoins; broad pilasters dividing 1st-floor bays. Round-arched openings at ground and 1st floors; basket-arched windows at 2nd floor; corniced margins to all windows. 3 slate steps to 2-leaf, 8-panel timber doors with fanlights in consoled, corniced architraves to outer bays.

Fixed glazing with 'fan'-pattern timber glazing bars to ground floor; 4-pane glazing in timber sash and case windows above; predominantly 12-pane glazing in timber sash and case windows to rear. Long, corniced ashlar end stacks with short, circular, buff clay cans. Grey slate roof with metal ridge.

INTERIOR: Some timber-panelled shutters.

Statement of Interest

An elegant, finely detailed, mid-19th-century palazzo-style former bank by the prominent Edinburgh architect John Dick Peddie (1824-91), situated at the centre of Hawick's High Street and making a significant contribution to the streetscape.

Peddie was practising in his firm of Peddie & Kinnear at the time he was working on this bank, having entered into partnership with Charles George Hood Kinnear in 1856. Peddie had served his apprenticeship in the office of David Rhind, and had commenced practice in Edinburgh in 1845.

No 12 High Street was built for the Royal Bank of Scotland, which established a nationwide branch network between 1854 and 1857. Peddie was responsible for the design of almost every new branch during this period, all in a stylish Palazzo form, having secured the bank's business through his father-in-law. This bank-building programme helped to establish his reputation as one of the foremost architects of his generation, his monogram appearing prominently on most of the front elevations - as it does here, on the top left quoin stone, balanced by the date, 1857, which is inscribed on the top right quoin stone.

The mason responsible for the fine stonework was Alexander Pirnie (1825-79). Pirnie was Edinburgh-born and was apprenticed to a stonemason in Kirkliston in 1841, but settled in Hawick after a brief return to central Edinburgh in the early 1850s, and spent the rest of his life there, living in the Wilton area.

The black slate cladding at ground floor was probably part of a 1920s or 1930s refit.

This building was empty at resurvey (2007/8); the Hawick branch of the Royal Bank of Scotland is now at 31-35 High Street (listed separately). List description revised following resurvey (2008).

External Links

• Historic Environment Scotland Listing
• Wikidata Q17834614

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

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