Masonic Hall, 14 Main Street, Lockerbie, Lockerbie, Dumfries and Galloway

Entry Name: Masonic Hall, 14 Main Street, Lockerbie

Listing Name: 14 and 16 Main Street, Masonic Hall

Listing Date: 20 November 2003

Category: C

Source: Historic Scotland

Source ID: 397157

Historic Scotland Designation Reference: LB49584

Building Class: Cultural

ID on this website: 200397157

Location: Lockerbie

County: Dumfries and Galloway

Town: Lockerbie

Electoral Ward: Annandale North

Traditional County: Dumfriesshire

Tagged with: Masonic temple

Description

Probably mid 19th century, incorporating earlier fabric, remodelled 1926 (see Notes). 2 storey, 3-bay Jacobethan style Freemasons Hall with grand pedimented and pilastered doorpiece and finialled parapet. 2-bay, 2-storey and attic house (No 16) with dormers adjoining to S. Neatly coursed red sandstone rubble with polished ashlar dressings. Blocked eaves course; cornice and parapet (raised at centre and corners) to Masonic Hall only. Long and short quoins; transomed and mullioned windows.

W (ENTRANCE) ELEVATION: central 2-leaf timber panelled door with 2-light mullioned fanlight in roll-moulded stop-chamfered surround. Ionic-pilastered surround with open scrolled pediment; festooned roundel to tympanum bearing Masonic arms, and inscribed LOCKERBIE. QUHYTE WOOLEN. LODGE NO 258 (see Notes). Bipartite window above with flanking pilasters; anthemion finials to parapet above. Flanking bays with tripartite windows at ground and bipartite windows at 1st floor; ball finials to outer corners of parapet. 2-bay house to right: timber panelled door with fanlight in chamfered surround; carved stonework to dormer pediments.

S (SIDE) ELEVATION: irregularly fenestrated. Timber boarded door at ground to right; walled-up entrance to left. Single storey section to outer right with 2-leaf timber boarded door and bipartite window.

N ELEVATION: gable to right with circa 1985 brick wall abutting. Lower range to left with 3 windows at 1st floor.

S (SIDE) AND E (REAR) ELEVATIONS OF NO 16: snecked sandstone gable to S with single window to attic and gablehead stack. Rounded corner to SE. Irregularly fenestrated rear with large staircase window at centre; lean-to scullery wing at ground with single coped skew.

Circa 2000 timber-framed double-glazed windows imitating originals to front of Masonic Hall; predominantly uPVC windows to rear and No 16. Corniced and coped stack with clay cans to No 16. Graded grey slate. Ashlar-coped skews. Cast-iron downpipes with decorative hoppers.

INTERIOR: 2-leaf, half-glazed timber panelled inner doors to lobby. Entrance hall with black and white diamond-pattern tiles. Staircase with timber banisters. Downstairs function room with beamed ceiling, supported on Ionic consoles. Temple on 1st floor with coved, compartmented ceiling; ribs supported on vaguely Doric corbels; decorative plaster cornice. Timber panelling to dado; aediculed frame behind principal chair at E end with Doric pilasters and segmental pediment; Doric pilastered architrave frames at centres of other walls. Stepped timber dais around whole room. Carved oak ceremonial furniture including tables and chairs. Timber panelled interior doors and plaster cornicing throughout.

Statement of Interest

A striking building on the main street through Lockerbie. The front elevation of the Masonic Hall is very well detailed for its comparatively late date (1926, see below), and the interior is also very well preserved. The history of this building is rather complicated. It was purchased by the Freemasons in 1926, and previous to that, the building had formed a coachmakers' premises. It is believed that the N wall of the Masons Hall incorporates part of the boundary wall of old Lockerbie Tower, which stood roughly on the site of the Police Station. The 1857 OS map shows two buildings on the site of Numbers 14 and 16. The one at No 14 is L-plan with a wing at the back. By 1898 the wing to the rear of No 14 has been extended S and E, so that it is longer and the same width as the front of the building. The scullery wing has been added to No 16 by that date too. No further alterations are apparent on the later maps, which would suggest that No 16 and most of the N wall of No 14 date from pre-1857, and the S wall of No 14 dates from between 1857 and 1898. When the Freemasons purchased No 14 in 1926 they re-built the front of the building, and probably remodelled the interior as well. Although the parapet stops very abruptly at the dormer windows of No 16, it appears, from the blocked cornice, and continuous stonework, that No 16 was re-fronted at the same time. It is unclear why this was done, as there is no record that this house ever belonged to the Freemasons. No 16 is listed because it appears to be structurally linked to Number 14.

Quhyte Woolen refers to a local hill of the same name. It is pronounced White Wheen, and means White Hill.

External Links

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