Description

Circa 1878. 3-storey and attic pair of matching 4-bay tenements with 3 shops (originally 4) at ground floor, forming part of terrace, with shoulder-arched windows and dormers to attic. Painted ashlar to shopfronts; tooled, squared, coursed yellow sandstone with raised, polished ashlar dressings above; roughly squared yellow sandstone with polished ashlar dressings and raised cills to rear. Plain stall risers; plain shopfront fascias, with cornices surviving at Nos 81 and 85; cill course and continuous hoodmoulds at 1st floor; eaves course connecting 2nd-floor lintels and rising to corbelled cornice, broken beneath dormers at No 85 by raised sections with roundels; blocking course at Nos 81-83. Quoin strips. Stop-chamfered margins. Shouldered window architraves at 1st floor; basket-arched margins and corbelled cills at 2nd floor. Timber-panelled front doors; corbelled canopy above tenement door of No 81; vertical and horizontal glazing bars to shopfront at No 81. 4 single-light, flat-roofed wallhead dormers at Nos 81-83, 2 bipartite, flat-roofed wallhead dormers at No 85. Mansard roof.

Fixed plate glass to shopfronts (curved to corner windows of No 81); predominantly 4-pane glazing in timber sash and case windows above. Grey slate roof; ashlar-coped skews; corniced ashlar stacks with circular buff clay cans.

INTERIOR: Stone stairs to closes at lower levels; timber stairs at top storeys; decorative cast-iron balustrades with polished timber handrails throughout. Predominantly 4-panel timber doors to flats.

Statement of Interest

B-Group comprises Nos 77, 79, 81, 83 and 85 High Street and 3 and 4 Oliver Place - see separate list entries.

A pair of well-proportioned, well-detailed, later-19th-century blocks with one fine shopfront with curved glass, situated at the later, north end of Hawick's High Street and making a strong contribution to the streetscape.

These buildings were probably built at the same time as the adjacent No 3 Oliver Place, which was commissioned by James Oliver of Thornwood (1817-1905), who made his fortune in the auctioneering business and was one of the town's wealthiest and most prominent figures at the time. No 3 Oliver Place has far more elaborately carved detail, but many of its essential forms - continuous hoodmoulds, cill courses, eaves courses, corbelled cornice - are shared with Nos 81, 83 and 85 High Street. It seems likely that Nos 81-85 High Street were originally Nos 1 and 2 Oliver Place; their similarity to No 4 also bears out this theory. (No 85 High Street and Nos 1-4 Oliver Place were previously listed together as a single item). List description revised following resurvey (2008).

Recommended Books

• 
  Staffordshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Pioneers of Modern Design: From William Morris to Walter Gropius (Penguin Art & Architecture)
• 
  Somerset: North and Bristol: The Buildings of England (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Old House Handbook: A Practical Guide to Care and Repair
• 
  Hampshire: Winchester and the North (The Buildings of England) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Norfolk 1: Norwich and North-East: Norwich and North-east v. 1 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)