Inverkeithing Town House is a municipal building in the Townhall Street,

Inverkeithing Inverkeithing ( ; gd, Inbhir Chèitinn) is a port town and parish, in Fife, Scotland, on the Firth of Forth. A town of ancient origin, Inverkeithing was given royal burgh status during the reign of Malcolm IV in the 12th century. It was an impo ...

Fife Fife (, ; gd, Fìobha, ; sco, Fife) is a council area, historic county, registration county and lieutenancy area of Scotland. It is situated between the Firth of Tay and the Firth of Forth, with inland boundaries with Perth and Kinross (i ...

, Scotland. The structure, which is used as a base by members of the local community council, 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 a

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 essen ...

which dated back at least to the mid-16th century. Six women were accused of witchcraft and incarcerated there in 1621. By the mid-18th century, the tower of the old tolbooth was at risk of collapse and the burgh leaders decided to demolish the old tower and to erect a new one in its place. The new tower was designed by John Monroe in the

Renaissance style Renaissance architecture is the European architecture of the period between the early 15th and early 16th centuries in different regions, demonstrating a conscious revival and development of certain elements of Ancient Greece, ancient Greek and ...

, built in coursed

sandstone Sandstone is a clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate grains. Sandstones comprise about 20–25% of all sedimentary rocks. Most sandstone is composed of quartz or feldspar (both silicates) ...

and was completed in 1755. However, by December 1769, the main section of the tolbooth was also in a dilapidated state and the burgh leaders decided to demolish this as well and to erect the main section of a new town house on the same site. The main section was designed by George Monroe in the

neoclassical style Neoclassical architecture is an architectural style produced by the Neoclassicism, 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 pr ...

, also built in sandstone and was completed in 1770. The four-stage tower featured a round headed doorway with

pilaster In classical architecture Classical architecture usually denotes architecture which is more or less consciously derived from the principles of Greek and Roman architecture of classical antiquity, or sometimes even more specifically, from the ...

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 and a keystone in the first stage and a small window with voussoirs and a keystone in the second stage. The second stage was surmounted by 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 pedimen ...

containing the burgh

coat of arms A coat of arms is a heraldry, heraldic communication design, visual design on an escutcheon (heraldry), escutcheon (i.e., shield), surcoat, or tabard (the latter two being outer garments). The coat of arms on an escutcheon forms the central ele ...

in the tympanum. There was a small blind panel on

brackets A bracket is either of two tall fore- or back-facing punctuation marks commonly used to isolate a segment of text or data from its surroundings. Typically deployed in symmetric pairs, an individual bracket may be identified as a 'left' or 'r ...

in the third stage and an

octagon In geometry, an octagon (from the Greek ὀκτάγωνον ''oktágōnon'', "eight angles") is an eight-sided polygon or 8-gon. A '' regular octagon'' has Schläfli symbol and can also be constructed as a quasiregular truncated square, t, whi ...

al belfry surmounted by a

dome A dome () is an architectural element similar to the hollow upper half of a sphere. There is significant overlap with the term cupola, which may also refer to a dome or a structure on top of a dome. The precise definition of a dome has been a m ...

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 ...

in the fourth stage. The design for the main section involved an asymmetrical main frontage with four bays facing onto Townhall Street; the second bay from the left featured a doorway flanked by pilasters supporting a

cornice In architecture, a cornice (from the Italian ''cornice'' meaning "ledge") is generally any horizontal decorative moulding that crowns a building or furniture element—for example, the cornice over a door or window, around the top edge of a ...

and the fourth bay featured a

pend In Scotland, a Pend is a passageway through a building, often from a street through to a courtyard or 'back court', and may be for both vehicles and pedestrian access or exclusively pedestrians. The term "common pend" can often be found in descr ...

leading to St Peter's churchyard behind. The first floor was fenestrated by four evenly spaced

sash window A sash window or hung sash window is made of one or more movable panels, or "sashes". The individual sashes are traditionally paned window (architecture), paned windows, but can now contain an individual sheet (or sheets, in the case of double gla ...

s with

architrave In classical architecture, an architrave (; from it, architrave "chief beam", also called an epistyle; from Greek ἐπίστυλον ''epistylon'' "door frame") is the lintel or beam that rests on the capitals of columns. The term can ...

s and the second floor was fenestrated by four evenly spaced small square windows with

wrought iron Wrought iron is an iron alloy with a very low carbon content (less than 0.08%) in contrast to that of cast iron (2.1% to 4%). It is a semi-fused mass of iron with fibrous slag Inclusion (mineral), inclusions (up to 2% by weight), which give it a ...

grills. Internally, the principal rooms were the prison for petty criminals on the ground floor, the courtroom on the first floor and the prison for debtors on the second floor. 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 Dunfermline District Council was formed in 1975. The town house subsequently became the meeting place of Inverkeithing Community Council and a venue for councillors' surgeries. A major programme of restoration works, which involved repairs to the external masonry and the installation of a lift, was initiated with financial support from

Fife Council Fife Council is the local authority for the Fife area of Scotland and is the third largest Scottish council, with 75 elected council members. Councillors are generally elected every five years. At the 2012 election there were 78 councillors ele ...

, the

National Lottery Heritage Fund The National Lottery Heritage Fund, formerly the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF), distributes a share of National Lottery funding, supporting a wide range of heritage projects across the United Kingdom. History The fund's predecessor bodies were ...

Historic Environment Scotland Historic Environment Scotland (HES) ( gd, Àrainneachd Eachdraidheil Alba) is an executive non-departmental public body responsible for investigating, caring for and promoting Scotland's historic environment. HES was formed in 2015 from the mer ...

and the Scottish Government in June 2022. The work, which is being carried out by Ashwood Scotland to a design by ARC architects, will enable the building to be used as a community hub and is due to be completed in February 2023.

References

{{reflist Government buildings completed in 1770 City chambers and town halls in Scotland Category A listed buildings in Fife Inverkeithing

History

See also

References