Description

William Simpson of Stirling, circa 1880. Extensive 2-storey commercial range with splayed angle to W. Deep base course forming ground floor cill course, stepped band course and eaves course. Squared and snecked bull-faced rubble with ashlar dressings. Roll-moulded segmental-headed openings to ground and basket-arched openings to 1st floor; deeply moulded doorheads; hoodmoulds with label stops; bracketted piend roofs; raked cills; stop-chamfered arrises, stone transoms and mullions.

N (PRINCIPAL) ELEVATION: prominent centre bay with paired panelled timber doors and plate glass fanlights linked under segmental hoodmould with high relief carved crown flanked by 'V' and 'R', bipartite window at 1st floor giving way to cast-iron letters 'CUSTOM HOUSE' breaking eaves into corbelled cornice and piended roof. Flanking bays with single and bipartite windows punctuated by 2 further doors to left and 1 to right at ground, and smaller piend-roofed 1st floor bays; bay to outer left with transomed bipartite window at 1st floor with floreate carved top 'lights' flanked by canine gargoyles and breaking eaves into spike-finialled pavilion roof.

E ELEVATION: single window to ground with bipartite to 1st floor.

S (REGISTER STREET) ELEVATION: similar door and window treatment.

4-pane and plate glass glazing patterns in timber sash and case windows. Grey slates. Coped ashlar stacks with cans. Decorative cast-iron finials.

INTERIOR: little altered interiors retaining decorative plasterwork cornices and centre roses; stone dog-leg staircases with decorative cast-iron balusters; architraved surrounds, panelled timber shutters and carved and plain timber fire surrounds. Also with etched glass screen door and tiled hall to No 7 Register Street.

Statement of Interest

In 1672 Bo'ness received 'the liberty to export, import and retail' and subsequently the customs office was transferred here from Blackness. When a protest was sent to Edinburgh's provost from Linlithgow's town council, they were informed that they would have to provide, rent free for a year, a 'convenient office house', as well as 'accommodation for officers, merchants and mariners' together with boats, horses and workmen to enable the merchants to work 'at as easy rates as they were used to'. This requirement indicating the high standards offered at Bo'ness. The large property produced is evidence of the scale of trade and nature of the economy in Bo'ness at this date.

External Links

• Historic Environment Scotland Listing
• Wikidata Q17816225

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

• 
  England's Post-War Listed Buildings
• 
  Central Leinster: Kildare, Laois and Offaly (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of Ireland)
• 
  Devon (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  [(Bedfordshire, Huntingdon and Peterborough)] [By (author) Nikolaus Pevsner] published on (January, 1968)
• 
  Gwent/Monmouthshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of Wales)
• 
  [(Cumberland and Westmorland)] [By (author) Nikolaus Pevsner] published on (January, 1967)