The Roundhouse, 1, 2 Harbour Place, Wick, Wick, Highland

Entry Name: The Roundhouse, 1, 2 Harbour Place, Wick

Listing Name: Harbour Place, the Round House

Listing Date: 13 April 1971

Category: B

Source: Historic Scotland

Source ID: 388825

Historic Scotland Designation Reference: LB42310

Building Class: Cultural

ID on this website: 200388825

Location: Wick

County: Highland

Town: Wick

Electoral Ward: Wick and East Caithness

Traditional County: Caithness

Tagged with: House

Description

Thomas Telford, 1807. 2-storey, 3-bay, rectangular-plan house. Over hanging eaves linking bowed outer bays. Harled, coursed Caithness stone slabs. Piended roof, chimney stack to ridge, reduced height.

N (HARBOUR QUAY) ELEVATION: timber panelled door to centre; advanced, bowed flanking bays; regular fenestration.

S (REAR) ELEVATION: irregular fenestration; single storey, piended roof, out-house abutting to centre right.

E (SIDE) ELEVATION: 2-bay, regular fenestration.

W (SIDE) ELEVATION: 2-bay, regular fenestration.

INTERIOR: not seen 2001.

12-pane sash and case windows. Grey slates, lead flashing. Long central ridge stack, height reduced since listing. Cast-iron rainwater goods.

Statement of Interest

The A Group for Lower Pulteneytown comprises; 19-27 Bank Row (Wick Heritage Centre), The Black Stairs, Harbour Place, Steven and Co storehouse, Harbour Quay, 6,7 Rose St, Old Fish Market, South Quay, storehouse, Telford Street, 2 Williamson Street.

The Group listing is in recognition of the exceptional group value of these buildings as the core of Thomas Telford's 1809 scheme for the new town plan of Pulteneytown for the British Fisheries Society. For further information see separate listing for 1 and 2 Argyle Square..

The Round House, in its commanding position over the inner harbour was built by George Burn, the contractor responsible for constructing the Wick bridge, the inner harbour and many of the houses in Upper Pulteneytown. Thomas Telford drew the plans for Burn originally as a speculative scheme to lease the building as an Inn. However, once built many independent inns or dram shops had sprung up in the area and Burn therefore made the building his own house.

Pulteneytown was a planned village established by the British Fisheries, a semi-charitable joint stock company established on the same basis as tollroad, canal trusts and other industrial settlements such as Easdale Island community founded by the Easdale Slate Company (see separate listing). The Society had established two previous settlements at Ullapool and Tobermory on the West Coast. These were laid out on simple grid plans by land surveyors. As with the majority of the three hundred or so planned villages established in the Highlands between 190 and 1830, regularity, "so that the town should have a handsome appearance", and convenience were the primary objectives. However, the Directors of the Society were also aware of the colonial aspect of their venture. Very much in the Roman colonia tradition of the Annexed Estates Commission settlements at Callander or Kinloch Rannoch, the grid plans of Ullapool and Tobermory were a deliberate imposition of order and control on a landscape and people considered wild and unruly. The same ethos used in the planning of the colonial settlements of North America, such as Williamsburg, Virginia. Besides the first Edinburgh New Town, earlier planned villages in Scotland, like Ormiston, East Lothian laid out by John Cockburn, 1738 or Inveraray first laid by the Duke of Argyll to plans by John Adam, 1751 and developed by Robert Mylne from 1774, further reflect that the simple grid was the ubiquitous choice for planners and founders of towns throughout Enlightenment Scotland.

External Links

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