Falkland Town Hall is a municipal building in the High Street,

Falkland, Fife Falkland ( gd, Fàclann), previously in the Lands of Kilgour ( 1200), is a village, parish and former royal burgh in Fife, Scotland, at the foot of the Lomond Hills. According to the 2008 population estimate, it has a population of 1,180. Etymo ...

, Scotland. The structure, which has been converted for use as offices and as shops, is a Category A

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

History

The first municipal building in the town was an old

tolbooth A tolbooth or town house was the main municipal building of a Scottish burgh, from medieval times until the 19th century. The tolbooth usually provided a council meeting chamber, a court house and a jail. The tolbooth was one of three esse ...

which dated back to the 17th century. By the late 18th century, it was in a dilapidated condition and the burgh leaders, who also had ambitions for a new school, decided to demolish the old tolbooth and to erect a new town hall, which would also accommodate the school, on the same site. The new building was designed by Thomas Barclay of Balbirnie in the

neoclassical style Neoclassical architecture is an architectural style produced by the Neoclassical movement that began in the mid-18th century in Italy and France. It became one of the most prominent architectural styles in the Western world. The prevailing sty ...

, built in ashlar stone and was completed in 1801. The design involved a symmetrical main frontage with three bays facing onto the High Street; the central bay, which slightly projected forward, featured a square headed doorway enclosed by a round headed arch with

voussoir A voussoir () is a wedge-shaped element, typically a stone, which is used in building an arch or vault. Although each unit in an arch or vault is a voussoir, two units are of distinct functional importance: the keystone and the springer. The ...

s; there was a tri-partite

mullion A mullion is a vertical element that forms a division between units of a window or screen, or is used decoratively. It is also often used as a division between double doors. When dividing adjacent window units its primary purpose is a rigid supp ...

ed window on the first floor and a

pediment Pediments are gables, usually of a triangular shape. Pediments are placed above the horizontal structure of the lintel, or entablature, if supported by columns. Pediments can contain an overdoor and are usually topped by hood moulds. A pedim ...

with the burgh

coat of arms A coat of arms is a heraldic visual design on an escutcheon (i.e., shield), surcoat, or tabard (the latter two being outer garments). The coat of arms on an escutcheon forms the central element of the full heraldic achievement, which in its ...

in the tympanum above. The outer bays were fenestrated by round headed sash windows on the ground floor and square headed sash windows on the first floor, and there were

balustrades A baluster is an upright support, often a vertical moulded shaft, square, or lathe-turned form found in stairways, parapets, and other architectural features. In furniture construction it is known as a spindle. Common materials used in its con ...

under each of the first-floor windows. The eastern elevation, facing onto Back Wynd, was designed in a similar style but, in the outer bays, the first-floor windows were blind, and, above the central pediment, there was a square tower which was surmounted by an octagonal belfry, a

spire A spire is a tall, slender, pointed structure on top of a roof of a building or tower, especially at the summit of church steeples. A spire may have a square, circular, or polygonal plan, with a roughly conical or pyramidal shape. Spires a ...

and a

weather vane A wind vane, weather vane, or weathercock is an instrument used for showing the direction of the wind. It is typically used as an architectural ornament to the highest point of a building. The word ''vane'' comes from the Old English word , m ...

. Internally, the principal rooms were the classroom on the ground floor and the burgh council chamber on the first floor. The council chamber contained some fine decorative plasterwork. The bell, which had been cast by a Dutch foundryman, Michael Burgerhuys of

Middelburg Middelburg may refer to: Places and jurisdictions Europe * Middelburg, Zeeland, the capital city of the province of Zeeland, southwestern Netherlands ** Roman Catholic Diocese of Middelburg, a former Catholic diocese with its see in the Zeeland ...

, in 1630 was recovered from the old tolbooth and a clock was designed and manufactured by

James Ritchie & Son James Ritchie & Son are a firm of Clockmakers in Broxburn, West Lothian, Scotland. The company was established in 1809 and is Scotland's oldest turret clock manufacturer. The firm produces and maintains all sorts of clocks, including public cloc ...

and installed in the tower in 1858. The town clerk, Charles Gulland, and other council officers relocated to Bank House, on the opposite side of Back Wynd, in around 1900. The building continued to serve as the meeting place of the burgh council for much of the 20th century but ceased to be the local seat of government when the enlarged North-East Fife District Council was formed in 1975. The first floor of the building was subsequently converted for commercial use and the ground floor, after being used as a post office, was converted for use as a shop. In 2016, the town hall was used to depict the Inverness County Records Office when it appeared in the television series, Outlander.

References

{{reflist Government buildings completed in 1801 City chambers and town halls in Scotland Category A listed buildings in Fife Falkland, Fife

History

See also

References