Description

Dated 1924 (see Notes), incorporating earlier fabric. Single storey, 5-bay Gothenburg public house with 3-stage Baroque entrance tower. Stugged and bull-faced ashlar with raised, tabbed margins and ashlar dressings. Deep base course and eaves course. Keystoned, round-headed doors and bipartite windows under flat lintels.

TOWER to S: round-arched openings to S, E and W of single bay, portico style 1st stage with square-plan prostyle columns and moulded capitals. Cavetto cornice giving way to tall 2nd stage with pilastered and segmentally-pedimented panel to S inscribed ?ERECTED IN MEMORY OF MALCOLM MALLACE PRESIDENT APHS LTD 1901 TO 1922?, pediment dated ?1924?, and clock face below cornice with raised centre; small round-headed opening below clock face to each return. Slightly setback 3rd stage with carved scrollwork angle stones giving way to octagonal louvered belfry.

S (MAIN STREET) ELEVATION: symmetrical. Projecting tower (see above) to centre bay masking moulded doorpiece with granite step and ?WINES SPIRITS ALES? over door; windows with dividing colonettes and carved screen aprons to flanking bays.

Doorways to outer right and left (latter converted to window).

Plate glass glazing in fixed windows. Graded grey slates. Coped ashlar stacks with ashlar-coped skews.

INTERIOR: modern.

Statement of Interest

One of the few remaining Gothenburgs still run by a committee the Armadale Goth premises, originally a bakery, was taken over by the Armadale Public House Society in 1901. After four years the front was "built" and a "large horse-shoe bar, with two rooms" (p9) added. Whether this date also saw the erection of the tower is not clear, but presumably the date of 1924 (on the tower) is correct; 1929 saw further "extension to the premises", probably to the rear.

'Gothenburgs' (originating in the Temperance Society of Gothenburg, Sweden) were drinking places, run by a committee, with profits distributed to worthy causes. Just fourteen months after opening, the Armadale Goth was able to fund the "uniform and wages" of a district nurse, and some notable causes to benefit in the early days included the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary with a donation of ?200 in 1920, and the Ambulance Association with an ambulance and garage in 1921.

External Links

• Historic Environment Scotland Listing
• Wikidata Q77772549

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

• 
  For the Record
• 
  Kent: North East and East (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  [(Cumberland and Westmorland)] [By (author) Nikolaus Pevsner] published on (January, 1967)
• 
  Building Small Projects (New Best of Fine Woodworking)
• 
  The Victorian House Manual (2nd Edition): How They Were Built, Improvements & Refurbishment, Solutions to All Common Defects - Includes Relevant ... ... Properties (Haynes Manual) (Haynes Manuals)
• 
  Northumberland (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)