Langholm, High Street, Town Hall

The town hall is situated in the centre of Langholm on the SE side of the Market Square. It was built in 1811 on the site of the old tolbooth, which was in existence by 1726. The building is two-storeyed and measures 12.6m by 9.15m, with a three-stage tower above the projecting centre of the three-bayed NW front. It is built of stugged ashlar from the Whita Quarry, and has a hipped and slated roof. The exterior is little altered, but it is now over-shadowed by the Jacobethan style library that was built against the SE wall in 1875-8, replacing an earlier building.

The regular NW front has stepped quoins and a first-floor band and eaves-cornice which return along the side-walls. The advanced central bay contains a plain rectangular doorcase, and the round-headed first-floor window, which has a projecting keystone and impost-blocks, is framed by paired angle-pilasters. The lowest stage of the tower has smaller windows of similar form, and the intaken upper stages, which contain clock-dials in plain square frames, and then a belfry with round-headed louvred openings, are topped by a concave stone roof with a weather-vane. The belfry no longer contains a bell, and the clock of 1886, which replaced the original one of 1813, was in turn rebuilt in 1962.

The interior of the building was radically altered for local government use in 1973 and there is little information about the previous arrangement. The ground floor originally contained three prison-cells, with the town hall above.

HISTORY

In 1726 it was noted that the village of Langholm 'is now very much improven and beautified with a townhouse and prison for the Regality of Eskdale, [and] a cross', and that it was the meeting-place of the regality and Justice of Peace courts. Thomas Telford recalled that the tolbooth was 'partly a prison and partly a justice hall ... with an outside stair for ascent: a sort of bell tower ... occupied the middle of the edifice, and its narrow iron-grated windows and the vault-like entrances gave it a gloomy gaol-like appearance'. He contrasted this with the new building which was 'in some places, decorated from Greek and Roman examples'. The new town hall, whose foundation-stone was laid in 1811, was built to 'Mr ElIiot's

plan', probably the work of the Kelso architect William ElIiot who was employed by the Duke of Buccleuch at this time. When the adjacent library was built in 1875-8 it was initially proposed to replace the town hall also, but this scheme was abandoned. The interiors of both buildings were altered in the 1970s.

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