Selkirk Town House is a municipal building in the Market Place,

Selkirk, Scottish Borders Selkirk is a town and historic royal burgh in the Scottish Borders council district of southeastern Scotland. It lies on the Ettrick Water, a tributary of the River Tweed. The people of the town are known as Souters, which means cobblers (sho ...

, Scotland. The structure, which is used as a local history museum 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 ...

in the Market Place which dated back at least to the early 16th century. The prison cells in the building were improved at the expense of

James Hamilton, 5th Duke of Hamilton James Hamilton, 5th Duke of Hamilton and 2nd Duke of Brandon KT FRS (5 January 1703 – 2 March 1743) was a Scottish peer, the son of the 4th Duke of Hamilton. Hamilton attended Winchester College from 1716 to 1717. He matriculated at Chri ...

, in 1742 and a steeple was added at the east end of the structure in 1746. The sheriff-depute,

Walter Scott Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet (15 August 1771 – 21 September 1832), was a Scottish novelist, poet, playwright and historian. Many of his works remain classics of European and Scottish literature, notably the novels ''Ivanhoe'', ''Rob Roy (n ...

, complained about the dilapidated state of the building in 1801 and burgh leaders agreed that it should be demolished. Work started on a new town house, located just to the west of the old tolbooth, in 1803. It was designed by Robert Lees of

Dalkeith Dalkeith ( ; gd, Dail Cheith, IPA: �t̪alˈçe is a town in Midlothian, Scotland, on the River Esk. It was granted a burgh of barony in 1401 and a burgh of regality in 1540. The settlement of Dalkeith grew southwestwards from its 12th-cent ...

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 ...

, built in coursed

rubble Rubble is broken stone, of irregular size, shape and texture; undressed especially as a filling-in. Rubble naturally found in the soil is known also as 'brash' (compare cornbrash)."Rubble" def. 2., "Brash n. 2. def. 1. ''Oxford English Dictionary ...

and

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 ...

stone and was completed in 1805. The design involved a symmetrical main frontage with three bays facing onto the Market Square; the central bay, which was slightly projected forward, was formed by a five-stage clock tower with heavy

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 ...

s separating each of the stages above the first. The clock tower featured a round headed doorway in the first stage, a round headed alcove containing a square headed window in the second stage, a blind panel in the third stage, a set of clock faces in the fourth 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 in the fifth stage. The bell, which had been cast by Lester & Pack in 1757, was recovered from the old tolbooth and the clock tower was surmounted by 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 are ...

, which was high. The outer bays were originally fenestrated by round headed windows on the ground floor and by square headed windows on the first floor. Internally, the principal room was the courtroom on the first floor. Scott continued to preside in the courtroom until his death in 1832, and hearings were relocated to a new courthouse in Ettrick Terrace in 1870. In 1891, a stained-glass window was installed on the first floor to commemorate the lives of local people who had died at the

Battle of Flodden The Battle of Flodden, Flodden Field, or occasionally Branxton, (Brainston Moor) was a battle fought on 9 September 1513 during the War of the League of Cambrai between the Kingdom of England and the Kingdom of Scotland, resulting in an English ...

during the

War of the League of Cambrai The War of the League of Cambrai, sometimes known as the War of the Holy League and several other names, was fought from February 1508 to December 1516 as part of the Italian Wars of 1494–1559. The main participants of the war, who fough ...

. The town clerk and other council officers relocated to a former private house, previously known as "Dovecote", further northeast along the High Street, in 1904. A plaque, intended to commemorate Scott's role sheriff-depute, was placed on the right of the doorway; a second plaque, intended to commemorate the granting of the town charter by

King James V James V (10 April 1512 – 14 December 1542) was King of Scotland from 9 September 1513 until his death in 1542. He was crowned on 21 September 1513 at the age of seventeen months. James was the son of King James IV and Margaret Tudor, and dur ...

in 1535, was placed on the left of the doorway and unveiled by

Charles Douglas-Home, 13th Earl of Home Charles Cospatrick Archibald Douglas-Home, 13th Earl of Home, (29 December 1873 – 11 July 1951), styled Lord Dunglass between 1881 and 1918, was a British peer and banker. He served as Lord Lieutenant of Berwickshire from 1930 to 1951. H ...

in June 1935. 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 Ettrick and Lauderdale District Council was formed in 1975. A small museum was subsequently established in the building with support from

Borders Regional Council The Scottish Borders ( sco, the Mairches, 'the Marches'; gd, Crìochan na h-Alba) is one of 32 council areas of Scotland. It borders the City of Edinburgh, Dumfries and Galloway, East Lothian, Midlothian, South Lanarkshire, West Lothian an ...

: it largely exhibited artefacts associated with the novelist, Sir Walter Scott, the poet,

James Hogg James Hogg (1770 – 21 November 1835) was a Scottish poet, novelist and essayist who wrote in both Scots and English. As a young man he worked as a shepherd and farmhand, and was largely self-educated through reading. He was a friend of many ...

, and the explorer, Mungo Park. An extensive programme of refurbishment works, financed by

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 Borders Council Scottish usually refers to something of, from, or related to Scotland, including: *Scottish Gaelic, a Celtic Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family native to Scotland *Scottish English *Scottish national identity, the Scottish ide ...

and costing £430,000, was completed in December 2018.

References

{{reflist Government buildings completed in 1805 City chambers and town halls in Scotland Category A listed buildings in the Scottish Borders Selkirk, Scottish Borders

History

See also

References