Strathaven Public Hall, also referred to as the Old Town Hall, Strathaven, is a municipal building in Kirk Street, Strathaven,

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, Scotland. The structure, which serves as a scout and guide centre, is a Category C listed building.

History

Following significant population growth in the late 19th century, largely associated with the weaving and brewing industries, a group of local businessmen decided to form a company, known as the "Strathaven Public Hall Company", to finance and commission a public hall for the town. A memorial stone was laid by Lieutenant Colonel Robert King Stewart, Grand Master of the Middle Ward of Lanarkshire, with full masonic rites, on 2 November 1895. The new building was designed by Alexander Cullen in the Baroque Revival style, built in red sandstone with

ashlar Ashlar () is finely dressed (cut, worked) stone, either an individual stone that has been worked until squared, or a structure built from such stones. Ashlar is the finest stone masonry unit, generally rectangular cuboid, mentioned by Vitruv ...

dressings and was completed in 1896. The design involved an asymmetrical main frontage of four bays facing onto Kirk Street. The second bay on the left featured a recessed doorway with a fanlight and a

Gibbs surround A Gibbs surround or Gibbs Surround is a type of architectural frame surrounding a door, window or niche in the tradition of classical architecture otherwise known as a rusticated doorway or window. The formula is not fixed, but several of t ...

formed by rusticated Doric order columns supporting an open pediment and a small wrought iron balcony bearing the monogram "SPH". The other bays on the ground floor were fenestrated by Diocletian windows, while the first floor was fenestrated by single windows in the two bays on the left and by a Venetian window with a Gibbs surround across the two bays on the right. The Venetian window was surmounted by a

stepped gable A stepped gable, crow-stepped gable, or corbie step is a stairstep type of design at the top of the triangular gable-end of a building. The top of the parapet wall projects above the roofline and the top of the brick or stone wall is stacked in a ...

. At the left-hand corner there was a

corbel In architecture, a corbel is a structural piece of stone, wood or metal jutting from a wall to carry a superincumbent weight, a type of bracket. A corbel is a solid piece of material in the wall, whereas a console is a piece applied to the s ...

ed tower with three windows, all with Gibbs surrounds, 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 ...

. Internally, the principal rooms were the main assembly hall, with seating capacity for 600 people, and the lesser hall, with seating capacity for 130 people. The building operated as a community events venue showing films and hosting dances for much of the 20th century until it closed in 1969. It then remained vacant until it was acquired by the local scouts and guides for use as a scout and guide centre in the mid-1970s. A programme of refurbishment works, carried out to a design by Haswell-Smith & Partners, was completed at that time. The company which had originally developed the building was then wound up and liquidated in 1977.

References

{{reflist Government buildings completed in 1896 City chambers and town halls in Scotland Category C listed buildings in South Lanarkshire Strathaven

History

See also

References