Publication Account
Date 1985
Event ID 1016548
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Publication Account
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1016548
Broad Street (formerly called Market Street) was the principal street of the medieval town and, despite its somewhat restrained air today, still retains much of the character of a late medieval market street with its merchants' houses, tolbooth and mercat cross.
Unlike the courtyard houses of the nobility in Castle Wynd (Mar's Work and Argyll Lodging, nos 11 and 12), the houses of the merchants and burgesses are tightly crammed together with only the gable end projecting on to the street front. The earlier medieval houses would have been of timber and these were replaced in stone during the course of 16th and 17th centuries. Much alteration has taken place since then, but the street-line and the plots have been fossilised. The narrow street facades offered the only opportunity for a public display of individual architectural detail, and the proud owners of these houses frequently advertised their status and wealth by embellishing their frontages. Much of this detail has been lost over the centuries but the best surviving example lies at No. 34, which is known after its 17th century owner as Norrie's House. James Norrie was Town Clerk and, from a date-stone on the building, he appears to have had the house built in 1671. It is four storeys high with an attic and is built of large ashlar blocks. The single gabled facade finishes in crowsteps and is crowned by a finial carved in the fonn of a human head. There are three windows on each floor (the original doorway is missing and it is now entered from next door), and above each there is a triangular pediment containing texts and initials, which include (on the first floor) ARBOR VIT AB SAPIENTIA (Wisdom is the tree of life) and MURUS AHENEUS: BONA CONSCIENTIA (A good conscience is a brazen wall), and on the second floor SOL(LI) DEO GLORIA (Glory to God alone) which is flanked by the initials (IN and AR) of James Norrie and his wife Agnes Robertson.
Opposite Norrie's House stands the Town House or Tolbooth, the administrative centre of the town. Originally built in 1703-5 to a design of the distinguished Scots architect Sir William Bruce, it was extended in 1785 and again between 1806-11, when a jail and courthouse were added. It has the distinction of being one of the earliest tolbooths to have been built in the classical style and the dubious honour of being copied by the alloa mason, Tobias Bauchop, when he built the Mid-Steeple in Dumfries.
A further reminder of the commercial connections of Broad Street is the Mercat Cross which stands in the middle of the carriageway in front of the Town House. It was re-erected here in 1891 following its removal by the Town Council in 1792. Only the unicorn finial, affectionately known locally is 'Puggy', is original, the shaft having been added as part of the Victorian restoration. The unicorn is sitting, and in front of its breast there is a crowned shield bearing the royal arms of Scotland, as befitting a royal burgh, and it is surrounded by the collar of the Order of the Thistle, the premier order of chivalry in Scotland.
Information from ‘Exploring Scotland’s Heritage: The Clyde Estuary and Central Region’, (1985).
