Description

Possibly William Railton, circa 1880. 3-storey, 5-bay commercial building with Gothic details and modern ground floor. Polished red Ballochmyle ashlar. Hoodmoulded paired windows with course cill. Cill course and bracketed cills to 2nd floor. Decorative arcaded parapet. Skew gabled with squared pyramidal skewputts with cross finials.

W (PRINCIPAL) ELEVATION: later entrance doors to far left leading to 1st floor; from ? of 1st bay to end of central bay Victoria Wine, door off centre left with windows to flanks. 2 smaller shop fronts spanning 4th and 5th bays. To 1st floor: moulded cill course; paired pointed-arch windows with roundel detail heads; central window single light with rows of carved detail to blind arch head; string at springing rising as hoodmould over windows. Cill course and bracketed cills to 2nd floor outer bay bipartites, central light again single light with cusped head and hoodmould. Blind arcaded parapet, with terminal finials, broken by central gable with decorative roundel panel with quatrefoil detail and apex stack.

N ELEVATION: adjoining 58 - 62 John Finnie Street (listed separately).

E (REAR) ELEVATION: not seen, 2001.

S ELEVATION: adjoining 72 - 84 John Finnie Street (listed separately).

2-pane timber sash and case windows with horned upper sashes; plate glass windows to later shop units. Piended grey slate roof. Painted cast-iron rainwater goods, gutters concealed behind decorated parapet. Yellow brick gablehead stacks with projecting stone neck copes adjoining those of adjacent buildings, cans removed to S stack, a few plain cans remaining to N stack; former stack to central front gable.

INTERIOR: ground floor altered to form modern shop units. Upper floors not seen, 2001.

Statement of Interest

Part of the John Finnie Street A-Group. John Finnie Street is nearly ? mile long and was built around 1864. It provided a grand thoroughfare for the town with the focal point to the north being the railway station. Business and commerce spread to this street and rows of high quality, 3-storey, red sandstone buildings were constructed. The ground floors were given over to retail, offices and accommodation were above. The street dominated the lower, narrower streets in Kilmarnock that were filled with traditional buildings. The street's architect was William Railton, who went on to design the Kilmarnock Infirmary (now demolished) and the surveyor was Robert Blackwood. This building was one of the earlier commercial buildings in the street. Originally, there was a formal entrance to the centre of the building, leading to the upper floors. To its flanks were shops. It was formerly known as "Peden's Building". A row of modern shop units have replaced the formerly symmetrical ground floor facade. In the past, Miss M Hamilton and John Winning (fitter) were some of the tenants in the upper floors whilst Fergus Douglas, a radiator specialist, and John Livingston's newsagents were found to the ground floor. The upper floors are now used as office space.

External Links

• Historic Environment Scotland Listing
• Wikidata Q17791598

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.

Recommended Books

• 
  Oxfordshire: North and West (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Kent: North East and East (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  [(Bedfordshire, Huntingdon and Peterborough)] [By (author) Nikolaus Pevsner] published on (January, 1968)
• 
  Pioneers of Modern Design: From William Morris to Walter Gropius (Penguin Art & Architecture)
• 
  Derbyshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Hampshire: South (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)