County Buildings is a municipal structure in Drysdale Street,

Alloa Alloa (Received Pronunciation ; educated Scottish pronunciation /ˈaloʊa/; gd, Alamhagh, possibly meaning "rock plain") is a town in Clackmannanshire in the Central Lowlands of Scotland. It is on the north bank of the Forth at the spot wher ...

Clackmannanshire Clackmannanshire (; sco, Clackmannanshire; gd, Siorrachd Chlach Mhannainn) is a historic county, council area, registration county and Lieutenancy area in Scotland, bordering the council areas of Stirling, Fife, and Perth & Kinross and the ...

, Scotland. The structure, which was the headquarters of Clackmannanshire County Council and is currently used as courthouse, is a Category B

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 judicial building in the county was the 17th century

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 ...

in Main Street in

Clackmannan Clackmannan ( ; gd, Clach Mhanainn, perhaps meaning "Stone of Manau"), is a small town and civil parish set in the Central Lowlands of Scotland. Situated within the Forth Valley, Clackmannan is south-east of Alloa and south of Tillicoultry. ...

. However, by the early 19th century, the tolbooth was in a dilapidated state. Court hearings were moved to the old Assembly Rooms in Alloa in 1822, which has since been demolished, before moving to Ochil House in 1842. This arrangement proved inadequate and, in the early 1860s, the

Commissioners of Supply Commissioners of Supply were local administrative bodies in Scotland from 1667 to 1930. Originally established in each sheriffdom to collect tax, they later took on much of the responsibility for the local government of the counties of Scotland. ...

decided to commission a bespoke courthouse. The new building was designed by Thomas Brown II and James Maitland Wardrop of the firm of Brown & Wardrop in the Scottish baronial style, built in ashlar stone at a cost of £8,000 and was officially opened on 8 December 1865. The design involved a symmetrical main frontage of seven bays facing onto Mar Street. The centre bay featured a doorway with a

hood mould In architecture, a hood mould, hood, label mould (from Latin ''labia'', lip), drip mould or dripstone, is an external moulded projection from a wall over an opening to throw off rainwater, historically often in form of a ''pediment''. This mouldin ...

flanked by

buttress A buttress is an architectural structure built against or projecting from a wall which serves to support or reinforce the wall. Buttresses are fairly common on more ancient buildings, as a means of providing support to act against the lateral ( ...

es and

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 ' ...

supporting a heavy

balcony A balcony (from it, balcone, "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. Types The traditional Maltese balcony ...

with corner

pier Seaside pleasure pier in Brighton, England. The first seaside piers were built in England in the early 19th century.">England.html" ;"title="Brighton, England">Brighton, England. The first seaside piers were built in England in the early 19th ...

s enhanced by lions holding shields. There was a central 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 and transomed window on the first floor surmounted by a hood mould, a carved Royal coat of arms and a stepped gable with a

lion rampant The lion is a common charge in heraldry. It traditionally symbolises courage, nobility, royalty, strength, stateliness and valour, because historically the lion has been regarded as the "king of beasts". The lion also carries Judeo-Chr ...

holding 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 ...

at the apex. The wings were fenestrated with bi-partite or tri-partite mullioned and transomed windows on both floors, and at roof level, the wings were surmounted by a

parapet A parapet is a barrier that is an extension of the wall at the edge of a roof, terrace, balcony, walkway or other structure. The word comes ultimately from the Italian ''parapetto'' (''parare'' 'to cover/defend' and ''petto'' 'chest/breast'). ...

, by stepped gables above the second and sixth bays and by finials. At the back of the building there was distinctive three-stage clock tower with a

pyramid A pyramid (from el, πυραμίς ') is a structure whose outer surfaces are triangular and converge to a single step at the top, making the shape roughly a pyramid in the geometric sense. The base of a pyramid can be trilateral, quadrilat ...

-shaped roof. Internally, the principal room was a double-height main courtroom. Following the implementation of the

Local Government (Scotland) Act 1889 The Local Government (Scotland) Act 1889 (52 & 53 Vict. c. 50) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom which was passed on 26 August 1889. The main effect of the act was to establish elected county councils in Scotland. In this it foll ...

, which established county councils in every county, the new county leaders needed to identify a meeting place for Clackmannanshire County Council and duly decided to meet in the courthouse at Alloa. The complex was extended by two bays along Drysdale Street, to create a new police station, in 1910 and extended again, to enlarge the police station, in 1938. After the abolition of Clackmannanshire County Council in 1975, the building continued to serve a judicial function, being used for hearings of the sheriff's court and, on one day a month, for hearings of the justice of the peace court.

References

External links

*{{commonscat-inline Government buildings completed in 1865 County halls in Scotland Category B listed buildings in Clackmannanshire Alloa

History

See also

References

External links