Town Hall, 104 High Street, Burntisland, Burntisland, Fife

Entry Name: Town Hall, 104 High Street, Burntisland

Listing Name: High Street, Town Hall

Listing Date: 3 August 1977

Category: B

Source: Historic Scotland

Source ID: 358481

Historic Scotland Designation Reference: LB22820

Building Class: Cultural

ID on this website: 200358481

Location: Burntisland

County: Fife

Town: Burntisland

Electoral Ward: Burntisland, Kinghorn and Western Kirkcaldy

Traditional County: Fife

Tagged with: City hall Seat of local government

Description

John Henderson, 1843 with addition of W wing in 1903 and alterations, 1950s and 1964. 2-storey gothic Town Hall with 4-stage battered spire. Ornamental blind arcaded parapet with pepperpot turret. Fleche. Ashlar with stone cills and quoins, chamfered base course, moulded string course and eaves course; stone mullions and transoms, deeply chamfered arrises, hoodmoulds with label-stops and voussoirs. Pointed arch doors and windows, traceried windows.

N (HIGH STREET) ELEVATION: slightly advanced door to left of centre at foot of spire (see below), bipartite window and tripartite window to right, 2-leaf gothic panelled door with 2-light fanlight to outer right, regular fenestration at 1st floor with cusped windowheads and hoodmoulds with label-stops below decorative parapet with corbelled pepperpot turret to outer right. 2 windows in broad gabled bay to left at ground, large window above with curvilinear tracery, hoodmould with label-stops and small quatrefoil opening over in gablehead.

SPIRE: engaged 4-stage tower with spire. Slightly advanced to N; plinth, boarded door with quatrefoil in timber tympanum, moulded doorcase: 2nd stage with saw-tooth coped batter beneath saw-tooth coped buttresses flanking pointed lancet with hoodmould and label-stops; 3rd stage with octagonal towerhead, small pointed-arch lights with hoodmoulds and label-stops to N, S, E and W, below single arcaded-frieze: 4th stage with saw-tooth coped batter below belfry, 8 deeply chamfered pointed-arch louvred openings with colonnettes, Roman clock faces to NE, NW, SE and SW and single blank course surmounted by billetted cornice. Slated octagonal spire with louvred stone gablet lucarnes to N, S, E and W, and cockerel weathervane.

E ELEVATION: 4-bay with bipartite timber doors to left and right of centre, both with plate glass fanlights, windows to outer right and left; regular fenestration at 1st floor, cusped bipartite windows with hoodmoulds and diamond label-stops.

W ELEVATION: quatrefoil opening in gablehead to left with flat-roofed (extension?) to right.

S ELEVATION: W wing (obscured at ground). Broad gable to left of centre with 3 regular pointed lancets at 1st floor, 2 windows to right, further narrow window to outer right; pointed lancet in gablehead and large rooflight to right. Timber fleche as birdcage bellcote disguising ventilation flue, cusped arches and leaded, swept pyramidal roof with diminutive gablet lucarnes and decorative finial.

Small-pane leaded glazing pattern to 1st floor N, plate glass glazing in fixed windows to ground and 1st floor E. Grey slates. Ashlar coped skews, gablet skewputts, gablet-coped ashlar skews. Coped ashlar stacks and cans. Cast-iron downpipes with decorative rainwater hoppers (lion design to E) and fixings.

INTERIOR: gothic decorative scheme to principal rooms. Top-lit stone stair with colonnetted timber balustrade and fine carved lion newel post finial; brass chandelier presented by Robert Johnston of London, 1819.

Magistrates Room with carved armorial panel over door; and panelled Burgh Chamber with large rectangular rooflight and carved armorial panel, in new W wing.

Council Chamber with open beam ceiling, dado height panelling and ornamental gallery with model galleon (The St Michael).

Statement of Interest

Built to replace the 1616 Tolbooth, the Town Hall now houses the bell from that building described in the 1933 Royal Commission Inventory as a "large and unusually good casting" with "2 annulets on the sound-bow and 7 at the waist above which are 2 representations in bas-relief of full-rigged ships". Pearson notes the re-siting to the Town Hall of "the Royal Arms of Scotland, dated 1382 and originally hung on the vestibule wall at Rossend Castle".

Burntisland became a Royal Burgh in 1541.

External Links

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