Former Guildhall

The former Guildhall is the building on the High Street you notice for its steeple. Archibald Elliot’s classical guildhall and linen exchange of 1805–11, Category A listed, has a tiered steeple that Historic Environment Scotland calls a local landmark. Elliot was a prominent Edinburgh architect who also designed two of that city’s important Greek Revival buildings, Regent Bridge and County Hall; here he used a superimposition of classical orders on a burgh building paid for by a linen town.

The use has changed more than once, and the listing is frank about that. Already by 1816–17 it had become the Spire Inn. It was converted to County Buildings, including the Sheriff Court, in 1849–50. HES recorded that in 1993 it became a job centre; that was the use when the listing was written, and it shouldn’t be taken as a current directory entry. What hasn’t changed is the external presence: the steeple over the High Street, and the address at 81–85 High Street and 4 Guildhall Street, hard by the Mercat Cross.

The cross itself was moved back to this stretch of the High Street in 1992, to what is believed to be its 1396 site, so the guildhall and the cross now read as a pair again. You can see the steeple easily from the street; there are no official visitor hours on the heritage record, and many historic High Street buildings are in other uses. Treat it as a landmark to look at as you walk the centre, not as a museum you can assume is open.