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Court house and county offices, still in use. A prison was built in 1842-3 by David Smith. The court house was built to the west in 1869-71 by James Maitland Wardrop. The prison then closed in 1883, and was converted to offices by John Carver in 1884, at which time the gatehouse was demolished. On the 1st edition OS map the prison is shown as a rectangular building with the south front elevation projecting to the east and west, and a rectangular building to the rear. On the 2nd edition OS map the court house is shown as a rectangular building with a wing projecting from the north-east corner, and projecting end bays to the main south elevation. There is a small circular building to the rear, and a rectangular building further to the north. They are depicted as 'county buildings'. There are an additional two rectangular buildings to the rear of the prison. Current maps show the prison building, which is no longer depicted as such, has been greatly extended to the north, with the additions replacing or incorporating the rectangular buildings. The circular building to the rear of the court house has been removed. The court house is a Flemish-Baronial style two-storey and attic building, constructed from squared and snecked red sandstone with ashlar dressings, hoodmoulded windows and courses at the first and second floors. There is a crenellated parapet, crowstepped gables with decorative finials, and bargeboarded timber dormers to the gabled roof. The principal south elevation is a symmetrical seven-bay U-plan, with diagonally set crocketed pinnacles and mock griffon gargoyles at the base. There is an arched doorway at the centre, flanked by buttressed piers topped with a bracketed balcony at the first floor with a pierced quatrefoil parapet and panelled piers topped with ball urns and griffons to the base. Above the central first-floor window is a carved armorial panel. There is a circular tower at the centre of the west elevation with an arcaded and rope-moulded eaves course incorporating carved griffons and topped by a candle snuffer roof with a weathervane. To the east elevation is a crowstepped gabled porch. The advanced gables have stone mullions and transoms to the bipartite and tripartite windows. The hoodmoulds to the ground-floor windows are stepped, and incorporate armorial panels. There is a two-storey former police station at the north-east corner, which has first floor windows that break the wallhead with triangular dormerheads and finials, and the entrance in the re-entrant angle has a rope-moulded hoodmould. There are ridge stacks rising into octagonal flues on the slate roof, and corniced stacks to the rear elevation gables. There are curved imperial entrance stairs, with coped, squared and coursed masonry walls extending along Market Street, with chamfered square piers topped with pyramidal caps. A high rubble wall with round coping encloses the rear of the court house. The offices to the east are two-storey and attic, constructed from coursed rubble, with square three-storey battlemented angle towers with tall corbelled angle rounds. There is a central three-storey narrow bay with a twin shaft chimney. Built on the site of as Steamloom Factory (NO45SE0362)
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Historic Environment Records (HER) 
Angus
HER -
NO45SE0072 - COUNTY BUILDINGS, MARKET STREET, FORFAR