Description

Mid and later 19th century. Former hotel comprising 4-storey and attic, 2-bay section to left (No 22) with shallow canted windows and slightly later 3-storey and attic, 2-bay section to right (No 20) with large tripartite windows, forming part of terrace. Polished yellow sandstone ashlar. Base course; continuous ground-floor cornice; 1st-floor cornice and string course to No 22 only; continuous 2nd-floor cornice forming eaves cornice to No 20; eaves cornice to No 22; blocking course. Rusticated quoins.

NO 20: 5-bay ground floor with 3 large windows to left, doorway to right, and pend to outer right. 2 symmetrically placed, tripartite, stone-mullioned windows in corniced architraves at 1st and 2nd floors. Eaves course. 2 timber-gabled dormers.

NO 22: French Renaissance style. 4-leaf, timber-panelled door to left with suspended, glazed canopy; large window with 2 turned glazing bars and single horizontal glazing bar to right, both with scrolled spandrels, flanked by half-fluted Corinthian pilasters supporting plain frieze. 2 slightly recessed, continuous, canted windows with stop-chamfered margins at 1st and 2nd floors, flanked by plain pilasters. Plain pilasters and entablature at 3rd floor. Central bipartite, stone-mullioned wallhead dormer with flanking consoles and swan-neck pediment; urn finials to stepped-back corners. Mansard roof with brattishing.

Plate glass to ground floor; predominantly plate glass in timber sash and case windows above. Grey slate roof. Ashlar-coped stacks with short, circular buff clay cans. Cast-iron rainwater goods.

INTERIOR: Mosaic-tiled floor to lobby of No 22 (see NOTES), leading through to timber stair with turned timber balustrade, polished timber handrail and rooflight.

Statement of Interest

An imposing, well-proportioned, mid- to later-19th-century former hotel with good French Renaissance-style detailing, situated in a prominent position at the centre of the High Street in the heart of Hawick, and making a strong contribution to the streetscape.

The Ordnance Survey Town Plan of 1857 only appears to show No 22; No 20 was presumably added soon thereafter.

As the name inscribed in the mosaic flooring in the entrance to No 22 attests, the building was built as the Crown Hotel. There were originally two flights of stairs, one leading to the bar and residents' lounge, and the other to the dining room and a large ballroom. It closed as a hotel in the late 1980s, reopening as the Crown Business Centre in 1993; the stair appears to be all that remains of the original interior.

The ground floor of No 20 has been slightly altered, as originally the inner two bays were doorways and the outer ones were glazed; around 1910 the left-hand side contained part of the hotel's bar, whilst the right side was William Campbell's boot and shoe shop. The three left bays are now all windows, with the right bay forming another doorway. The close to the outer right, Crown Close, originally led through to the hotel's stables, and later to the Hawick Advertiser printworks and the premises of blacksmith William Telfer. List description revised following resurvey (2008).

External Links

• Historic Environment Scotland Listing
• Wikidata Q56635130

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

• 
  Suffolk: East (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Cork: City and County (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of Ireland)
• 
  Herefordshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Oxfordshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Derbyshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Yorkshire West Riding: Sheffield and the South (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)