Description

Earlier 19th century. 3-storey, 4-bay, rectangular-plan, commercial building with tenement flat to upper floors sited to corner of island block to the centre of the town. Segmental-arched, corniced, decorative corbelled hoodmould with heart crest to left entrance on principal (N) elevation, chamfered corner to NE and central shouldered wallhead stack. Course sandstone blocks to principal elevation, painted and rendered to ground and plain eaves cornice. Coursed rubble to side. Stop chamfered sandstone dressings and angled stone cills to tall first floor windows and smaller second floor windows. Corniced entrance to exterior pend to far left of side elevation linking to warehouse to rear.

4-pane timber sash and case windows with horns to principal elevation with 2 over 4 glazing pattern to side elevation (E). 6-pane fixed lights to shop front. 4-panel entrance door to tenement stair (no.78) and timber and glazed bi-fold outer doors to former shop at no. 77. Piended slate roof, cast-iron rainwater goods with decorative squared hoppers.

INTERIOR: tenement stair to upper floors with stone slab floor, dado rail and decorative cast-iron banisters. 1st and 2nd floor modernised to form commercial premises and residential accommodation to upper floor with internal timber shutters.

Statement of Interest

77 and 78 High Street is a good example of a former civic building to the heart of the medieval burgh with good stone details and which makes a positive contribution to the streetscape. The building has had several uses over the years but was likely to have been built as the Good Templars' Hall in the earlier 19th century. The Templars was one of several independent temperance societies that were established from the 1830s onwards. The building is not yet evident on John Wood's map of 1819 although by the 1893 town plan it is marked as the Good Templars' Hall. The entrance to No 78 (the upper floors) is decorative with a crest which may have been that of the Good Templars Society.

The building forms part of an island block surrounded by Market Street, Brown Street and Kilpair Street, where buildings are tightly packed to form a solid block apart from a small exterior pend to the rear of this building and the warehouse building beyond. The island block is evident on early maps of the town and has a strong civic history as the 1853 town plan of Haddington shows both the Gardeners Hall and the Oddfellows Hall in the buildings immediately adjacent to it to the W as well as the Templars and the Order of Forrester's Hall to the top floor of the building on Kilpair Street to the rear of no.77. It is likely that the Templars Meeting Hall was to the first floor of the building with the larger windows as most of the societies on the blocks leased their ground floors to shops or Public Houses and had their meeting rooms upstairs.

The Independent Order of Good Templars was formed in Glasgow in August 1869. It was part of the largest temperance movement in Scotland which had begun in the early nineteenth-century. By 1876 the Templars in Scotland had 1,131 lodges and 83,717 members. Temperance literature had strong religious overtones and frequently cited biblical disdain of intoxication. Like many of its sister groups the Good Templars welcomed women to its ranks.

The ground floor is office accommodation and the first floor a dental practice, (2012) Most recent former use was as an antique and furniture saleroom.

Category changed from B to C and list description updated in 2013.

External Links

• Historic Environment Scotland Listing
• Wikidata Q56634803

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
• 
  This Old House: Restoring, Rehabilitating, and Renovating an Older House
• 
  London 1: The City of London: City of London v. 1 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  County Durham (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England) by Elizabeth Williamson Nikolaus Pevsner(1983-03-11)
• 
  Maintaining and Repairing Old Houses: A Guide to Conservation, Sustainability and Economy
• 
  Suffolk: East (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)