Post Office, Wemyssfield, Kirkcaldy, Kirkcaldy, Fife

Entry Name: Post Office, Wemyssfield, Kirkcaldy

Listing Name: Hunter Street and Wemyssfield, Post Office Including Pedestrian Gateway, Gatepier and Boundary Walls

Listing Date: 8 November 1995

Category: B

Source: Historic Scotland

Source ID: 381230

Historic Scotland Designation Reference: LB36452

Building Class: Cultural

Also known as: Kirkcaldy, Wemyssfield, Post Office

ID on this website: 200381230

Location: Kirkcaldy

County: Fife

Town: Kirkcaldy

Electoral Ward: Kirkcaldy Central

Traditional County: Fife

Tagged with: Architectural structure

Description

Probably Robert Matheson, HM Office of Works, 1900-1902. 2-storey with attic and single storey, irregular-plan, Jacobean-Baronial post office with angle tower on prominent corner site. Squared and snecked cream sandstone, and brick to rear; droved and stugged ashlar dressings. Base course, dividing cornice, cill courses and part eaves cornice. Crowstepped gables, voussoirs, semi-circular pediments to 1st floor bipartites; all windows to S, E and W transomed unless stated; chamfered and moulded arrises, stone mullions.

S (PRINCIPAL, HUNTER STREET) ELEVATION: slightly advanced gabled bay to outer right with finialled pedimented doorcase to left, banded pilasters, 'POST OFFICE' on lintel, carved tympanum with royal cipher and finials; deep-set, part-glazed, 2-leaf timber door (behind roller shutter) and semi-circular fanlight; window to right at ground.

2 pedimented bipartite windows to 1st floor and small bipartite with strapwork pediment in gablehead. Bays to centre with bipartite window and flanking windows to each floor, that to centre at 1st floor 6-part and breaking eaves with pediment bearing armorial panels, surmounting crown finials and flanking lion finials; flanking stone balustrade. Polygonal, timber-louvered, finialled air vent to centre of roof ridge. 3-stage engaged round tower to outer left with architraved and pedimented window (converted from door, not transomed) at ground, canopied window at 1st floor, ropework moulding below corbel to 3rd stage with conical roof and weathervane finial.

W (WEMYSSFIELD) ELEVATION: 6 single storey bays to centre, each with window and continuation of dividing cornice forming pedimented hoodmould except slightly advanced bay to outer right with window (not transomed) over letter boxes, cornice and balustrade; 2 small, conical- roofed air vents at roof ridge. Flanking, slightly advanced 2-storey gabled bays, that to right with bipartite window to ground, segmentally pedimented bipartite above and narrow light in gablehead; bay to left lower, with tripartite window (not transomed) and relieving arch at ground and pedimented, bracketed bipartite window above in gablehead.

E ELEVATION: bipartite window to centre at ground and 1st floor, corbelled angle to right, and smaller corbelled and finialled pedimented bipartite window breaking eaves above; blocked doorway to left with blank face above, and pedestrian gateway (see below) abutting to outer left; slightly recessed 3-storey tower-like bay with small parapet to outer right, small extension at ground, window to 1st floor and 2 small windows to 2nd floor, semicircular coping to centre of parapet.

NW ELEVATION: broad, deep-set timber door with relieving arch off- centre right, 2 windows to left, pedimented window breaking eaves to left of centre above, adjacent stack to left and shouldered stack to right.

N ELEVATION: piended rubble bay to outer right with 2 bipartite windows at ground and pedimented window breaking eaves above; asymmetrical brick elevation to left with later timber and perspex additions. Piended brick sorting office with 7 round-headed windows to E, linked to former Unitarian Church at E.

Mainly 6-pane upper over 4-pane lower sashes in timber sash and case windows. Grey slates. Cavetto coped ashlar stacks with terracotta cans; ashlar-coped skews and skewputts. Cast-iron downpipes with decorative rainwater hoppers and grilles.

INTERIOR: timber panelled vestibule; decorative cast-iron newel post and timber handrail to staircase; egg and dart cornicing and some timber panelling to vestibule and former front office (left). Single storey range open-timber ceiling, cast-iron pipework and radiators.

PEDESTRIAN GATEWAY, GATEPIER AND BOUNDARY WALLS: pedestrian gateway with round-headed cope to Hunter Street. Single square-section gatepier with corniced cap to Wemyssfield; cast-iron spurs to angles of building and gatepier. Low, saddleback-coped boundary walls, some with railings.

Statement of Interest

Built with stone from Grange Quarry, Burntisland, the Post Office was the first governement building in Scotland to receive a royal cipher 'ER VII'. The sculpture is by Mr Murdoch of Kirkcaldy.

External Links

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