Clackmannan, Main Street, Mercat Cross

Burgh Cross.

The cross (SC 1167939) stands in the main street beside the Tolbooth. Although the stepped base has been renewed, the shaft is original. It is 9 feet 6 inches in height and is octagonal in section, measuring 11 inches in diameter. The capital is moulded and has on the east side a shield enclosed by swags and bearing a saltire and chief, for Bruce. A second shield, carved on the west side, has apparently been similarly charged, but is now very weatherworn. The ball finial on the capital was removed in 1857, but replaced in 1897.

RCAHMS 1933, visited 27 June 1928.

The following text has been prepared as part of the HES Urban Survey of Clackmannan, 2021-2.

The main component of the Clackmannan Historic Core Area of Townscape Character lies at the centre of the town, focused on the High Street (NS99SW 51) and Main Street (NS99SW 59), running East along a ridge leading from Clackmannan Tower all the way to Cattlemarket (NS99SW 162). Kirk Wynd (NS99SW 142) and Port Street (NS99SW 143), leading north and south from the junction with High Street and Main Street, and North Street (NS99SW 124) and Garden Place (formerly Archibald Place) (NS99SW 144), running parallel to Main Street, help form the core of the former burgh. For the purposes of this study, the small pockets of late 19th-century development on Port Street, Cattlemarket and Kirk Wynd, as well as remaining outlying buildings or areas formerly occupied by mining villages, have also been considered as part of the Clackmannan Historic Core Area of Townscape Character when studying how the town developed.

Clackmannan developed initially as a royal burgh and displays the stereotypical layout of Scottish burghs. The key feature is the herringbone street pattern, with Main Street and High Street leading east from the boundary of the Tower, and plots or riggs running off at right angles behind the main street. To the rear are the original back lanes, now North Street and Garden Place. This basic layout remains visible in the streetscape today.

Main Street retains many original buildings, including, at its widened west end, the market cross (NS99SW 3) and the surviving 17th-century section of the former tolbooth (NS99SW 2.0). Most of the street retains a range of 19th-century, traditional two-storeyed and two-storeyed-plus-attic terraced houses and tenements, with single-storeyed cottages at Nos 3, 56 and 62. All are either stone-built or harled/whitewashed, with slate or pantiled roofs, and timber-framed sash and case windows in varying glazing patterns. Both sides of the street have some areas of 20th-century redevelopment, designed in the ‘conservative surgery’ style (as at High Street) to maintain the integrity of the earlier Main Street streetscape (discussed in more detail later). No 2 Main Street (NS99SW 56), with its interesting-shaped Dutch-style gable facing Main Street, and crowstepped gables to Port Street, is the earliest building on the street, dating from c.1700. Originally the Royal Oak Inn, it was reputedly named after a locally owned ship, and was converted to flats in the 1990s.

Terminating the eastern end of the south side of Main Street is the imposing red sandstone Town Hall (NS99SW 103), which was a donation by the local mill-owner, John Thomson-Paton (1832-1910). The original library, reading rooms and billiards room were built in 1888 to designs by Adam Frame (c.1837-1901), but were soon extended in 1903 to Ebenezer Simpson’s (1854-1934) Art Nouveau design which incorporates carved panels ‘LIBRARY’, ‘READING ROOM’ and ‘PUBLIC HALL’ with an elaborate carved pediment containing the town’s coat of arms above the entrance doorway. An additional extension on the east elevation was added by the local authority in 1992-4, using artificial red/pink stone at upper level, harled and rendered at lower levels, and comprising dormer windows at roof level which mimic an earlier style.

Other notable buildings on Main Street include the former Co-operative Society building at No 61, with its central scrolled pediment with ‘COOPERATIVE SOCIETY LTD FOUNDED 1863’ carving and topped by a tall double chimneystack. This date refers to when the Society was formed rather than the date for the building, which was actually built in 1891 to designs by architect James Johnston (n.d.). The ground-floor shopfronts have been filled in and replaced by modern frontages occupied by two takeaways (at the time of writing, 2022; No 61 was occupied by the town’s post office until c.2016), but the first floor retains the original arched sash and case windows. The current (2022) Co-operative Food store occupies Nos 23-25 Main Street, in a late 19th-/early 20th-century former townhouse with a central pedimented dormer. The original ground floor has been completely replaced with a modern shop front, but the first floor retains original sash and case windows in a two-four-two pattern, with interesting nine-paned glazing in the upper sash. These are two of the more interesting buildings from the Victorian/Edwardian period on Main Street, and probably replaced earlier terraced houses, while retaining the scale of the streetscape. (Both of these buildings are noted at NS99SW 59 for Clackmannan, Main Street, General).

Main Street remains a predominantly residential street, whilst also forming the town centre. This is reflective of no deliberate commercialisation of a ‘town centre’, as seen in other small burghs and villages where they have become reliant upon another town -in Clackmannan’s case, Alloa. It currently (2022) has two public houses, a takeaway bakery/café, hairdressers, pharmacy, two takeaway/fast food outlets and the Co-operative Food store. Other social amenities are spread across all three Areas of Townscape Character identified in the town: primary school, health centre, neighbourhood shops, bowling green, churches, playing fields and pavilions, along with other individual retail and commercial units.

However, most of the key buildings within the town are found within the Clackmannan Historic Core Area of Townscape Character. The parish church (NS99SW 19) dominates the skyline, sitting on higher ground at the west end of Main Street, to the south of High Street. Designed in Gothic style by eminent architect James Gillespie Graham (1776-1855), it was built in 1815 on the site of an earlier, 13th-century, church, and has a four-stage square tower at the west front. The associated manse predates this church, being built in the mid-18th century to the south of the churchyard. This two-storeyed Georgian villa has had small extensions added to the side and rear elevations, but retains most of its original features and proportions, including a full-height bay window added to its westernmost bay in 1863 by James Maitland Wardrop (1824-82). The graveyard surrounding the church contains a range of stones, many dating from the 17th and 18th century. It was given a new entrance with a lych gate (see NS99SW 143 for Clackmannan, Port Street, General) leading off from the main junction of Main Street and Port Street, incorporated within the redevelopments of the late 1950s/early 1960s. The lych gate, dated 1966, is formed of stone walls supporting a red-tiled piended roof, and black-painted wooden gates. It forms a link between the two housing developments flanking the churchyard entrance.

Two other churches were built in the centre of Clackmannan during the late 18th and 19th centuries. The Relief Church was built in 1788 and stood on the corner of North Street and Kirk Wynd but was demolished c.1933. The manse for this church, another substantial stone-built villa built in the mid- to late 19th century, survives halfway down Kirk Wynd, at No 23, but is now in private hands. Finally, in 1845, the Free Church (NS99SW 104) was built at the north end of Kirk Wynd, to designs by John Burnet Snr (1814-1901). George Alexander Kerr (1865-1927) carried out alterations to the church c.1900, and it was converted to a masonic hall in 1938-9. Its key feature, a central bellcote, still survives and it retains its form and masonic function today (2022).

The lack of Georgian/Victorian development in Clackmannan is noticeable compared to other similar towns, which saw extensive expansion during this period. Apart from the key buildings discussed, only a few detached and semi-detached cottages were built on the roads leading out from the burgh core (Kirk Wynd, Port Street and Cattlemarket). Mostly single- or one-and-a-half-storeyed, these were generally plain, stone-built with slate roofs, though some have bay windows and dormers to attic floors. Those along part of Alloa Road tend to be more substantial, with some additional decorative features such as finials to dormer gables. In the north-east of the town, on Mill Road, Clackmannan House (NS99SW 65), built c.1815, remains a relatively unaltered typical Georgian villa although now surrounded by housing dating from the later 20th century.

Towards the end of the 19th century, there was a growing interest in leisure activities as a means of keeping the working population suitably occupied outwith their working hours. In particular, sporting pursuits were encouraged, and Clackmannan saw its fair share of sports clubs and facilities springing up. These were focused in the outlying mining hamlets on the edges of the town boundary, mostly around the southern edge, at Duke Street, Green and Square. The 1870s and 80s saw the establishment of cricket, rugby, curling, tennis and football clubs, and a bowling green was built at the south end of Castle Street. The 2nd edition of the OS 25-inch map (Clackmannanshire, 1900, CXL.5) shows the football ground and curling ponds on the site of what is now Chapelhill, which is where the tennis courts were also believed to have been from 1895. The bowling club still remains, and a new pavilion (NS99SW 160) was built for the club in 1892. Due to the nature of development within the town after the Victorian period, most recreational spaces now lie on the edges of the town and fall within the Clackmannan C20 Industrial Expansion Area of Townscape Character (NS99SW 165).

Alongside the residential, religious and leisure developments in the town, education was provided through a series of schools within the historic core of the town. The Public School (NS99SW 62), designed by architect Adam Frame (c.1837-1901), was opened on Alloa Road in 1897, with additions in 1924-7 by George Twigg (1873-1953) of the same architects’ firm. The school was still marked on the 1967 edition of the OS 1:10,560 map. It was closed and demolished when a new primary school (NS99SW 134) was built in 1971-2 to the south of the town on Lochies Road (lying within the Clackmannan C20/C21 Commuter Expansion Area of Townscape Character (NS99SW 165)). The site of the public school is now occupied by late 20th-/early 21st-century housing developments (Millbank Crescent (NS99SW 126) and Livingstone Way (NS99SW 121)). Ordnance Survey maps from 1863-6 (1st edition of the OS 6-inch map (Clackmannanshire 1866, CXL) and 1st edition of the OS 25-inch map (Clackmannanshire c.1863, CXL.5)) show there were two other schools already in the town before the public school was built. One is noted on the maps just to the east of the Free Church on Alloa Road, and the other is on North Street, also noted as ‘School and County Hall (disused)’ on the OS 25-inch map of c.1863. This latter school has also been known as the ‘penny school’, and the building was used as a masonic lodge between 1922 and 1939, before being put to military use as a drill hall (NS99SW 107) during WWII and subsequently part of a Territorial Army Centre prior to its demolition in the early 1970s. The school connection remains in the street name of the red brick bungalows now occupying the site, in Pennyschool Place (NS99SW 125), dating from the 1990s.

Despite these fairly isolated developments across the oldest parts of the town, it was not until the mid-20th century that any major impact was felt in the burgh core. County Architect William Higgins Henry (1905-84) undertook the principles of Patrick Geddes (1854-1932) and sought to improve substandard properties in the High Street (NS99SW 51) and Main Street (NS99SW 59) by demolishing some of the 18th- and 19th-century tenements and terraced houses, by reusing significant elements from these in the rebuilding -termed ‘conservative surgery’. The replacement buildings were mostly built on the footprints of the original buildings, with some alterations on High Street to create small courtyard developments off the main thoroughfare, allowing more units to be created in the same space. Some additional development took place into Kirk Wynd (NS99SW 142) and along North Street (NS99SW 124), while Archibald Place, to the south of Main Street, was rebuilt and renamed Garden Place (NS99SW 144). Many of these new buildings incorporated recreated traditional features such as crowstepped gables, corbelling and carved skewputts, examples of which may or may not have been present on the original buildings they replaced (photographs of the street prior to redevelopment have not been able to be viewed at the time of writing to confirm (May 2022)). However, these details are appropriate for the townscape, particularly as traditional building materials (or appropriately sympathetic materials) have been used -harling in either white or cream/beige, pantiles, and some timber sash-and-case windows. Stone has been used for details around base courses, window dressings and door surrounds, as well as forming distinctive arched pends giving access to back courts.

At the west end of High Street’s (NS99SW 51) north side, are a group of adjoining single-storeyed cottages (Nos 64-72) with pantiled roofs, in traditional vernacular style. Next to these are more single-storeyed cottages formed in an L-plan off the street (Nos 44-8). These also have pantiled roofs and are a mix of stone base courses and gable ends, and harled. While the windows are traditional twelve-paned sash and case style, entrances have more contemporary (to 1960s) glazing patterns lighting small entrance halls, with a mix of large and small oblong and square panes. This style is also seen at the redeveloped Nos 32-8 Main Street (see NS99SW 59 for Clackmannan, Main Street, General), though windows have been replaced with later double-glazed units, and there are two-storeyed examples in the same style further west at Nos 26-30 Main Street. In the middle of the north side of Main Street, Nos 33-47 also replaced dilapidated terraced houses and display the same features of beige harling, stone base courses, pantiled roofs and sash and case style windows as at Nos 16-20 High Street.

Nos 22-42 High Street (see NS99SW 51 for Clackmannan, High Street, General) are simpler in design, with a mix of single- and two-storeyed terraced houses, comprising brown corrugated tiled roofs, beige harling, and sections of stone cladding around entrance doorways and pends. Glazing here is more contemporary and some have more recent replacements. As High Street reaches the junction with Kirk Wynd, some traditional details start to reappear with crowstepped gables, corbelling and twelve-paned sash and case windows at Nos 2-20. This continues round the corner into Nos 1-11 Kirk Wynd (NS99SW 142). There is a two-sided sundial on the corner at No 2 High Street, along with a carved panel above paired ground-floor windows. No 4 has a reused datestone above its entrance door. The east end of the south side of High Street has another row of adjoining single-storeyed, harled cottages (Nos 1-13) with pantiled roofs and sash and case windows with mixed glazing patterns. These lead into the group of cottages and two-storeyed house on Port Street which flank the lych gate entrance to the churchyard (NS99SW 143). Again, there is a mix of harling and stone finishes, but all mimic the vernacular style. Behind Main Street, Garden Place (NS99SW 144) displays a mix of styles from the Henry developments: single- and two-storeyed with stone dressings to doorways, red-tiled or slate roofs, arched pends in terraced blocks, and some corbelling and shaped skewputts as details at No 21. Similarly, North Street’s (NS99SW 124) redevelopment comprised both single- and two-storeyed terraces, simple in composition, but with rusticated stone surrounds around entrances and at base courses, the rest being grey/beige harled with red tiled roofs.

The 1990s saw some other alterations to the townscape of the historic core, with terraced housing at Nos 49-59 Main Street being replaced with a pair of two-storeyed flatted dwellings, and Nos 57-59 being truncated and infilled with a flat-roofed commercial unit. The town’s population growth justified the building of a new health centre around the early 1990s, and this one-and-a-half-storeyed building still sits at the junction of Main Street/Cattlemarket/North Street. Composed of red brick base course, cream cement render and brown corrugated tile roof, it has a small area of lawn in front and to the east side, and a car park to the rear, all enclosed by a section of boundary wall from earlier buildings.

Despite this major redevelopment of much of the main thoroughfares in the former burgh, Clackmannan has managed to retain most of its historic street layout at its core. By retaining the basic form of the burgh, the relative plot size, building height, materials and density of the town centre has also survived, aided by the sympathetic redevelopment carried out in the 1950s and 60s by W H Henry. This was recognised when the redevelopment works won a Civic Trust Award in 1959 for quality, sympathetic and sensitive design in a historic townscape.

More in-depth discussion on the character of two further Areas of Townscape Character identified in the town can be found under:

-Clackmannan, C20 Industrial Expansion Area of Townscape Character (NS99SW 165)

-Clackmannan, C20 and C21 Commuter Expansion Area of Townscape Character (NS99SW 166)

Information from HES (LCK), 23rd November 2022