Kinghorn, St Leonard's Place, Town Hall

Belief is strong that the pre-1822 town house was originally an ecclesiastical building, changed from sacred to secular uses at the Reformation. Although many writers insist that only the chapel tower was used. A. Reid was able to judge from old drawings, that, all of the chapel of St.Leonard was employed as municipal offices. The nave and chancel figure in the design, which seems simply that of a 'Saxon or Norman church of no great size' (1906, 20). It was apparently removed in 1822, having been severely damaged by lightning. The present town house has been described as a mid-nineteenth century building of pseudo-sixteenth century design and with no evidence of earlier work (Ordnance Survey, Record Cards, NT 28 NE 7).

Information from ‘Historic Kinghorn: The Archaeological Implications of Development’ (1981).

Before 1822 Kinghorn town council met in St Leonard's Tower, which was badly damaged by lightning in that year. The present town-house, on the same site at the junction of Bruce Street and Overgate, was designed by the Edinburgh architect Thomas Hamilton in a castellated neo-Tudor style and built in 1829-30. The two-storeyed main block is of rectangular plan, measuring 12.2m by 9.7m, with a recessed single-storeyed wing to the NE. To the rear there is an obliquely-set rectangular courtyard enclosed by a high perimeter-wall. The building is constructed of coursed sandstone, with ashlar facing of Cull aloe sandstone in the main (SE) front.

The three-bay main block has a projecting central bay framed by faceted buttresses which rise as octagonal turreted pinnacles above a low central tower. This has a crenellated parapet supported by triple-stepped corbels. The clock-face in the centre of its main face is enclosed within a round-headed moulding set on a corbelled cornice. The main parapet, also supported by stepped corbels, has a plain coping but its angles are marked by projecting turrets. The turret at the N angle functions as a chimney, while the main chimneys, each having three hexagonal stone stacks, are set on the side-walls. The centrally-placed doorway and the windows are all squareheaded with hood-moulds and the tall first-floor windows are of two and three lights with rectilinear tracery. Original cast iron railings and a light archway flank the steps and entrancepath. The perimeter-wall of the rear courtyard, which has an ogee-headed entrance-doorway near the SE angle, is decorated with blind crosslet-Ioops.

The ground-floor vestibule gives access to a barrel-vaulted chamber at each side, and there is a third in the NE wing. All have fireplaces with simple moulded surrounds and two of them were used as cells, while the central one was probably a guard-room. It communicates by a newel-stair with a first floor office adjoining the court-room, while the main staircase is situated in the Wangle at the rear of the central hall. The guard-room also gives access to the courtyard to the rear which was used as an exercise-yard for prisoners.

The court-room and council-chamber, a rectangular room running the full width of the main block, has an ogee-headed fireplace with faceted jambs in each end-wall and a cornice incorporating foliate lozenges.

Information from ‘Tolbooths and Town-Houses: Civic Architecture in Scotland to 1833’ (1996).