History in Structure

2 High Street, Hawick

A Category C Listed Building in Hawick, Scottish Borders

We don't have any photos of this building yet. Why don't you be the first to send us one?

Upload Photo »

Approximate Location Map
Large Map »

Coordinates

Latitude: 55.4216 / 55°25'17"N

Longitude: -2.7879 / 2°47'16"W

OS Eastings: 350227

OS Northings: 614465

OS Grid: NT502144

Mapcode National: GBR 85ZR.7B

Mapcode Global: WH7XG.4ZPN

Plus Code: 9C7VC6C6+JV

Entry Name: 2 High Street, Hawick

Listing Name: 2 High Street

Listing Date: 19 August 1977

Category: C

Source: Historic Scotland

Source ID: 378920

Historic Scotland Designation Reference: LB34626

Building Class: Cultural

ID on this website: 200378920

Location: Hawick

County: Scottish Borders

Town: Hawick

Electoral Ward: Hawick and Hermitage

Traditional County: Roxburghshire

Tagged with: Shop Tenement

Find accommodation in
Hawick

Description

Mid 19th century with 20th-century wing to rear. 3-storey and attic, 3-bay, ridge-roofed, symmetrical tenement and shop forming part of terrace, with Baronial-style gabled dormers breaking eaves. Painted ashlar to shopfront; tooled yellow sandstone ashlar with polished ashlar dressings above; roughly squared yellow sandstone with polished ashlar dressings to rear; rendered with yellow sandstone ashlar quoins to rear wing. Plain stall risers; consoled, corniced shopfront fascia; 1st-floor cill course; continuous 2nd-floor hoodmould; eaves course broken by dormers. Decorative, stop-chamfered margins. Shallow, 3-storey, piend-roofed wing to rear.

FURTHER DESCRIPTION: Plain shopfront with central recessed, half-glazed, timber door flanked by large shop windows with central vertical glazing bars; decoratively shaped margins with cusped detailing at 1st floor; slightly raised cills with deep corbels at 2nd floor; gabled dormers with kneelered skews and fleur-de-lys finials. Plaque commemorating Adam Grant between 1st-floor windows to right (see NOTES). Rear elevation with 3-storey wing to left and regularly spaced windows with raised cills in 2 bays to right.

Plate glass to shop windows; 4-pane glazing in timber sash and case windows above; predominantly 12-pane glazing in timber sash and case windows to rear. Grey slate roof with metal ridge. Ashlar-coped skew to S. Coped ashlar stacks with circular buff clay cans.

Statement of Interest

A well-proportioned, mid-19th-century block with good detailing, situated at the heart of Hawick at the point where the High Street meets Tower Knowe, and offering a strong contribution to the streetscape. Its three Baronial dormers echo those of the earlier, adjacent Drumlanrig's Tower (listed separately).

The Ordnance Survey Town Plan of 1857 shows this building with further structures extending to its rear, but seemingly separated from them by a pend. Later maps show one very deep structure, but the rear parts must have been demolished in the later 20th century, and it was presumably then that the rear wing was added.

The 1st-floor plaque commemorates the composer, musician, and music seller and publisher Adam Grant (1859-1938), whose first music shop was in this building. Grant was born in St Andrews and educated in Edinburgh, arriving in Hawick at the age of 19 to work as a church organist. He went on to compose the music for several Hawick songs and musicals, as well as non-Hawick music, and was official accompanist to Hawick's key festival, the Common Riding (which commemorates the 1514 defeat of Lord Dacre's English Army at Hornshole, two miles away, by a party of local youths) for 50 years and to the local Callants' Club for over 30 years. His music shop closed in 1933. The plaque, which features a profile portrait and short text and was unveiled in 1999, was sculpted by William Landles (1923-), a Hawick resident who worked as a grocer before becoming a self-taught sculptor and attending Edinburgh College of Art. He taught at the High School for 23 years and has exhibited regularly at the Royal Scottish Academy. List description revised as part of the Hawick Burgh Resurvey (2008).

External Links

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

Other nearby listed buildings

BritishListedBuildings.co.uk is an independent online resource and is not associated with any government department. All government data published here is used under licence. Please do not contact BritishListedBuildings.co.uk for any queries related to any individual listed building, planning permission related to listed buildings or the listing process itself.

British Listed Buildings is a Good Stuff website.