The Corn Exchange is a commercial building in the St Catherine Street,

Cupar Cupar ( ; ) is a town, former royal burgh and parish in Fife, Scotland. It lies between Dundee and Glenrothes. According to a 2011 population estimate, Cupar had a population around 9,000, making it the ninth-largest settlement in Fife, and the ...

Fife Fife ( , ; ; ) is a council areas of Scotland, council area and lieutenancy areas of Scotland, lieutenancy area in Scotland. A peninsula, it is bordered by the Firth of Tay to the north, the North Sea to the east, the Firth of Forth to the s ...

, Scotland. The structure, which is now used as a community events venue, is a Category B

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Hi ...

History

In the late-1850s, a group of local businessmen decided to form a private company, known as the "Cupar Corn Exchange Company", to finance and commission a

corn exchange A corn exchange is a building where merchants trade grains. The word "corn" in British English denotes all cereal grains, such as wheat and barley; in the United States these buildings were called grain exchanges. Such trade was common in towns ...

for the town. One of the early subscribers, in September 1959, was the

Lord Chancellor The Lord Chancellor, formally titled Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain, is a senior minister of the Crown within the Government of the United Kingdom. The lord chancellor is the minister of justice for England and Wales and the highest-ra ...

John Campbell, 1st Baron Campbell John Campbell, 1st Baron Campbell, Privy Council of the United Kingdom, PC, FRSE (15 September 1779 – 23 June 1861) was a British Liberal Party (UK), Liberal politician, lawyer and man of letters. Background and education The second son of ...

. The site they selected was on the corner of St Catherine Street and Castlehill. The foundation stone for the new building was laid in August 1861. It was designed by

Campbell Douglas Archibald Campbell Douglas (usually simply referred to as Campbell Douglas) (14 June 1828 – 14 April 1910) was a Scottish architect based primarily in Glasgow. He designed many churches in Glasgow and Edinburgh, especially those for the Free ...

in the

Gothic Revival style Gothic Revival (also referred to as Victorian Gothic or neo-Gothic) is an architectural movement that after a gradual build-up beginning in the second half of the 17th century became a widespread movement in the first half of the 19th century ...

, built in

rubble masonry Rubble masonry or rubble stone is rough, uneven building stone not laid in regular courses. It may fill the core of a wall which is faced with unit masonry such as brick or ashlar. Some medieval cathedral walls have outer shells of ashlar wi ...

at a cost of £4,000 and was completed in 1862. The design involved a four-stage tower facing onto St Catherine Street. The first stage featured a square headed doorway set in an arched recess flanked by

cast iron Cast iron is a class of iron–carbon alloys with a carbon content of more than 2% and silicon content around 1–3%. Its usefulness derives from its relatively low melting temperature. The alloying elements determine the form in which its car ...

lanterns, the second stage involved a French door and a

balcony A balcony (from , "scaffold") is a platform projecting from the wall of a building, supported by columns or console brackets, and enclosed with a balustrade, usually above the ground floor. They are commonly found on multi-level houses, apartme ...

and the third stage involved a casement window with

ogee An ogee ( ) is an object, element, or curve—often seen in architecture and building trades—that has a serpentine- or extended S-shape (Sigmoid curve, sigmoid). Ogees consist of a "double curve", the combination of two semicircle, semicircula ...

-shaped carvings above, while the fourth stage involved a pair of

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 sup ...

ed windows. The tower was surmounted by a spire with

lucarne In general architecture a lucarne is a dormer window. The term is borrowed from , which refers to a dormer window, usually one set into the middle of a roof although it can also apply to a façade lucarne, where the gable of the lucarne is aligne ...

s. The Castlehill elevation, which extended back for seven bays, was built in a plainer style and was fenestrated with small square windows on the ground floor and with

dormer A dormer is a roofed structure, often containing a window, that projects vertically beyond the plane of a Roof pitch, pitched roof. A dormer window (also called ''dormer'') is a form of roof window. Dormers are commonly used to increase the ...

windows at attic level. Internally, the principal room was the main hall which was long and wide. The spire, at high, became a dominant feature on the local skyline. A grand concert, held under the patronage of the 1st Forfarshire Light Horse Volunteer Corps, which had been raised in spring 1870, was held in the building on 12 July 1870. The use of the building as a corn exchange declined significantly in the wake of the Great Depression of British Agriculture in the late 19th century. Instead, it became a community events venue hosting a variety of festivals, fairs, and concerts. It was acquired by Cupar Town Council in 1961 and the dormant company, which had developed the corn exchange, was acquired, together with its books and records, by Cupar Heritage in 2016.

References

{{reflist Commercial buildings completed in 1862 Category B listed buildings in Fife

Cupar

History

See also

References