Inveraray, Court House
Court House (19th Century)
Site Name Inveraray, Court House
Classification Court House (19th Century)
Alternative Name(s) Crown Point
Canmore ID 73117
Site Number NN00NE 33
NGR NN 09651 08394
Datum OSGB36 - NGR
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/73117
- Council Argyll And Bute
- Parish Inveraray
- Former Region Strathclyde
- Former District Argyll And Bute
- Former County Argyll
NN00NE 33.00 09651 08394
NN00NE 33.01 NN 0967 0840 The Old Jail
NN00NE 33.02 NN 09657 08374 The New Jail
Architect:
J.Gillespie Graham, 1816-1820.
Designed by Robert Reid in Inveraray Castle Collection, 1807.
John Adam design for two wings on Old Court House in Inveraray Castle Collection, posssible.
James Peddie and Wm Lumsden contract to build, 1816-1820.
Richard (?) Crichton enters plans for Inveraray Court House, 1812.
NMRS copies of drawings in possession of Duke of Argyl, Robert Reid, 1807.
NMRS REFERENCE:
Plans:
IG Lindsay Collection, W/363/20
(Undated) information in NMRS.
Photographic Survey (April 1963)
Photographic survey by the Scottish National Buildings Record/Ministry of Work in April 1963.
Measured Survey (October 1984)
RCAHMS surveyed the court-house and jails, Inveraray in October 1984 producing a general plan at a scale of 1:100. The plan was redrawn in ink and published at a scale of 1:1000 (RCAHMS 1992, 445B).
Field Visit (September 1984)
The walled precincts of the former court-house and County jails occupy an area measuring about 45m by 24m on Crown Point. On the SE a substantial enclosure-wall incorporates two circular angle-turrets and a central rounded bulwark, on a massive battered plinth which rises from the shore of Loch Fyne (en.l*), while the main NW front of the court-house projects 10.5m into Church Square.
The court-house was erected between 1816 and 1820 to plans adapted by James Gillespie Graham from an 1807 design for the same site by Robert Reid. The contractors, William Lumsden and James Peddie, were both from Edinburgh, and the contract price was £5,858. The old jail, a detached two-storeyed block which stands immediately NE of the court-house, was also completed about 1820 as a debtors' prison and was used latterly as a female prison. A three-storeyed 'new' jail was built as a felons' prison by Thomas Brown in the SW half of the enclosure in 1843-5. In 1869 a two-storeyed police block containing domestic and office accommodation with overnight cells was attached to the SW side of the court-house, and in 1931-2 a further block was added between the NE wall of the court-house and the1820 jail (en.2*).
RCAHMS 1992, visited September 1984
[see RCAHMS 1992, No. 205, for a full architectural description]
