Description

Late 19th century. Rectangular-plan church halls (now in business use). Street block of 2 storeys with upper breaking eaves. Single storey halls to rear. Whin and sandstone rubble with ashlar dressings. Oriented NE-SW and situated on an open site adjacent to the former Ladhope church. Shouldered arch openings throughout, distinctive stepped pedimented dormers with adjoining stepped wallhead stack.

FRONT (NE) BLOCK: 3 bays; single boarded door to left and two bays of bipartite windows and dormers. 3-Bay side elevation; irregular fenestration.

HALL: 5 bays of blocked bipartites to SE elevation, last bay altered to form door. Hood-moulded Gothic bipartites to SW (rear) elevation. Blank NW elevation.

Plate glass timber sash and case windows with some uPVC replacements. Purple slate roof with rooflights to NW elevation. Ashlar skews with fleur-de-lis skewputts. Two corniced gable stacks with clay cans, truncated stepped wall-head stack adjoining dormer.

INTERIOR: interiors of front block altered for present use, layout surviving. Interior of hall has high semicircular laminated trusses and a glazed boarded gallery.

Statement of Interest

The former Ladhope church halls makes a significant contribution to the interesting collection of buildings along Ladhope Vale. Although the building has been somewhat altered for its present use, it retains its proportions and its interest as an unusual building type, combining church halls and the manse or school.

The adjacent Ladhope Parish Church was a Quoad Sacra church out of Melrose Parish, built in 1843. The date of the halls is uncertain. The halls are marked as a school on the 1898 OS map, but there are no references to this building being used as a conventional school. There was, however, a successful bible school in the building from 1887 and the maps may be recording this.

This building replaced half of a semi-detached block and was built on to a low cottage to the NW, the gable of which is still visible on the NW wall.

External Links

• Historic Environment Scotland Listing
• Wikidata Q77779671

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

• 
  Northumberland (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Norfolk 1: Norwich and North-East: Norwich and North-east v. 1 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Department for Communities Listed Historic Buildings of Northern Ireland: Information Guide for the 2nd Survey of Historic Buildings
• 
  Bristol (Pevsner Architectural Guides: City Guides)
• 
  A Buying and Owning a Listed Building: A Brief Guide
• 
  Surrey (The Buildings of England) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)