The Municipal Buildings are based in Buccleuch Street in
Dalkeith
Dalkeith ( ; , ) 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 1541. The settlement of Dalkeith grew southwestwards from its 12th-century castle (now Dalkeith Pala ...
, Scotland. The structure, which served as the meeting place of Dalkeith Burgh Council, 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
The first municipal building in the town was
Dalkeith Tolbooth
Dalkeith Tolbooth is a historic building on the High Street in Dalkeith, Scotland. The building, which was previously the meeting place of the burgh council, is a Category A listed building.
History
A tolbooth has existed on the east side of th ...
in the High Street which was completed in 1648. Following significant population growth, largely associated with the status of Dalkeith as a market town, the area became a
police burgh
A police burgh was a Scottish burgh which had adopted a "police system" for governing the town. They existed from 1833 to 1975.
The 1833 act
The first police burghs were created under the Burgh Police (Scotland) Act 1833 ( 3 & 4 Will. 4. c. 46 ...
in 1878. In this context, the new burgh commissioners decided to procure a purpose-built municipal structure: the site they selected was occupied by a local reservoir.
The old reservoir was demolished and replaced by a water tower in Cemetery Road.
The new building was designed by
James Alison (1862-1932) in the
Scottish baronial style
Scottish baronial or Scots baronial is an architectural style of 19th-century Gothic Revival which revived the forms and ornaments of historical architecture of Scotland in the Late Middle Ages and the Early Modern Period. Reminiscent of Scot ...
, built in
ashlar
Ashlar () is a cut and dressed rock (geology), stone, worked using a chisel to achieve a specific form, typically rectangular in shape. The term can also refer to a structure built from such stones.
Ashlar is the finest stone masonry unit, a ...
stone at a cost of £592 and was used for the first time on 9 October 1882.
[
The design involved a symmetrical rounded frontage at the junction of Buccleuch Street and Eskbank Road; it featured a doorway in a concave moulding with a ]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 last two being outer garments), originating in Europe. The coat of arms on an escutcheon f ...
above all surrounded by a stone carving in the form of a rope, and there was a corbel
In architecture, a corbel is a structural piece of stone, wood or metal keyed into and projecting from a wall to carry a wikt:superincumbent, bearing weight, a type of bracket (architecture), bracket. A corbel is a solid piece of material in t ...
led turret
Turret may refer to:
* Turret (architecture), a small tower that projects above the wall of a building
* Gun turret, a mechanism of a projectile-firing weapon
* Optical microscope#Objective turret (revolver or revolving nose piece), Objective turre ...
with a conical roof on the first floor. The design for the Eskbank Road elevation involved three bays; the centre bay, which slightly projected on the first floor, featured a three-light window on that floor 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 ...
containing a clock. The design for the Buccleuch Street elevation also involved three bays; the left hand bay featured a round headed window on the ground floor, the centre bay was fenestrated with two-light 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 windows, but can now contain an individual sheet (or sheets, in the case of double glazing) of glass.
History
...
s on both floors and the other bays contained single light sash windows.[ Internally, the principal room was the council chamber.][
The fire service started to store a fire hose in the municipal buildings in order to protect that part of the town in 1885, and the structure was extended by five extra bays along Buccleuch Street to a design by Charles Henry Greig at a cost of £2,000 in 1908.][ The municipal buildings continued to serve as the headquarters of the burgh council for much of the 20th century but ceased to be local seat of government after the enlarged Midlothian District Council was formed at new offices in White Hart Street in 1975. The complex was subsequently used as the local registration office and also as the local ]Citizens Advice
Citizens AdviceCitizens Advice is the operating name of The National Association of Citizens Advice Bureaux, which is the umbrella charity for a wider network of local advice centres. The abbreviation CitA is sometimes used to refer to this natio ...
office.
See also
*
References
{{reflist
Government buildings completed in 1882
Dalkeith
Dalkeith ( ; , ) 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 1541. The settlement of Dalkeith grew southwestwards from its 12th-century castle (now Dalkeith Pala ...
Dalkeith
Category B listed buildings in Midlothian