St Andrews Town Hall is a municipal structure in South Street,

St Andrews St Andrews (; ; , pronounced ʰʲɪʎˈrˠiː.ɪɲ is a town on the east coast of Fife in Scotland, southeast of Dundee and northeast of Edinburgh. St Andrews had a recorded population of 16,800 , making it Fife's fourth-largest settleme ...

Fife Fife ( , ; ; ) is a council areas of Scotland, council area and lieutenancy areas of Scotland, lieutenancy area in Scotland. A peninsula, it is bordered by the Firth of Tay to the north, the North Sea to the east, the Firth of Forth to the s ...

, Scotland. The structure, which is the meeting place of the Royal Burgh of St Andrews Community Council, is a Category B

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Hi ...

History

The first municipal building in the town was a

medieval In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of World history (field), global history. It began with the fall of the West ...

tolbooth A tolbooth or town house was the main municipal building of a Scotland, Scottish burgh, from medieval times until the 19th century. The tolbooth usually provided a council meeting chamber, a court house and a jail. The tolbooth was one of th ...

in the centre of Market Street which dated back to the 12th century. The building was arcaded on the ground floor, so markets could be held, with an assembly room on the first floor; an extra storey was added in 1817, but, after the building became an impediment to traffic, it was demolished in 1862. The burgh leaders decided to procure a new burgh hall: the site they chose in South Street was occupied by a row of residential properties. Construction work on the new building started in 1858. It was designed by James Anderson Hamilton in the

Scottish baronial style Scottish baronial or Scots baronial is an architectural style of 19th-century Gothic Revival which revived the forms and ornaments of historical architecture of Scotland in the Late Middle Ages and the Early Modern Period. Reminiscent of Scot ...

, built in

rubble masonry Rubble masonry or rubble stone is rough, uneven building stone not laid in regular courses. It may fill the core of a wall which is faced with unit masonry such as brick or ashlar. Some medieval cathedral walls have outer shells of ashlar wi ...

by John M'Intosh and was completed in 1862. The design involved an asymmetrical main frontage facing onto South Street; it featured a

bartizan A bartizan (an alteration of ''bratticing''), also called a guerite, ''garita'', or ''échauguette'', or spelled bartisan, is an overhanging turret projecting from the walls of late-medieval and early-modern fortifications from the early 14th c ...

in the northeast corner, a central six-light

mullion A mullion is a vertical element that forms a division between units of a window or screen, or is used decoratively. It is also often used as a division between double doors. When dividing adjacent window units its primary purpose is a rigid sup ...

ed window on the first floor and a central

stepped gable A stepped gable, crow-stepped gable, or corbie step is a stairstep type of design at the top of the triangular gable-end of a building. The top of the parapet wall projects above the roofline and the top of the brick or stone wall is stacked in ...

containing a single

sash window A sash window or hung sash window is made of one or more movable panels, or "sashes". The individual sashes are traditionally paned windows, but can now contain an individual sheet (or sheets, in the case of double glazing) of glass. History ...

. There was a prominent

corbel In architecture, a corbel is a structural piece of stone, wood or metal keyed into and projecting from a wall to carry a wikt:superincumbent, bearing weight, a type of bracket (architecture), bracket. A corbel is a solid piece of material in t ...

led

turret Turret may refer to: * Turret (architecture), a small tower that projects above the wall of a building * Gun turret, a mechanism of a projectile-firing weapon * Optical microscope#Objective turret (revolver or revolving nose piece), Objective turre ...

with a conical roof in the northwest corner. It originally extended for seven bays along Queen's Gardens and, internally, the principal rooms were the council chamber and the assembly hall. A mosaic, created by three Polish servicemen, was installed on the Queen's Gardens elevation of the building and unveiled in October 1941 to record the appreciation of the many Polish soldiers who had been welcomed to St Andrews following the capitulation of Poland at the start of the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

. The building was extended along Queen's Gardens by two more bays in a similar style in the 1964. The complex continued to serve as the headquarters of the burgh council for much of the 20th century, but ceased to be the local seat of government when the enlarged North East Fife District Council was formed in 1975. It subsequently became the meeting place of the Royal Burgh of St Andrews Community Council. Works of art in the town hall include a portrait by an unknown artist of the member of parliament, George Dempster of Dunnichen, and a portrait by

John Watson Gordon Sir John Watson Gordon (1788 – 1 June 1864) was a Scottish Portrait painting, portrait painter and president of the Royal Scottish Academy. Life and work Gordon was born in 1788, in Edinburgh, the eldest son of Captain Watson, R.A., a cadet ...

of the former

provost Provost may refer to: Officials Ecclesiastic * Provost (religion), a high-ranking church official * Prince-provost, a high-ranking church official Government * Provost (civil), an officer of local government, including the equivalent ...

of St Andrews,

Sir Hugh Lyon Playfair Sir Hugh Lyon Playfair (20 February 1787 – 19 January 1861) was a Scottish politician, army officer and photographic pioneer. He was Provost (civil), Provost of St Andrews from 1842 until his death in 1861. Biography He was born in Meigle ...

. There is also a wood carving by the Polish artist,

Józef Sękalski Józef Sękalski (1904–1972), also known as Josef Sekalski and Juozapas Senkalskis, was a Polish Painting, painter, Printer (publishing), printer, Etching, etcher and illustrator who lived and worked in Scotland. Biography Sękalski was born in ...

, depicting the crucifixion of St Andrew and a boar.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Saint Andrews Town Hall Government buildings completed in 1862 City chambers and town halls in Scotland St Andrews Category B listed buildings in Fife Listed government buildings in Scotland 1862 establishments in Scotland

History

See also

References