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Former Town House and police station, now in use as Council Chambers. The town house was built in 1853-5 by Thomas Mackenzie, and the police office added in 1906 by Reid and McRobbie. It is shown on the 1st and 2nd edition OS maps as a rectangular building with a curved south-west corner. To the east is an L-plan and two rectangular buildings. Current maps show the building to the east have been replaced or incorporated into the police station extension. The Town House is built in the Renaissance style. It is two-storey and constructed from ashlar, with an arched ground floor and curved corner with Doric columns. A statue of Alexander George Fraser, 16th Lord Saltoun, also known as 'the Waterloo Saltoun', stands at the first floor level, with a tall domed Corinthian rotund above. The 1906 addition is constructed from granite. Above the main door is a Funeral Hatchment which shows the arms of the 16th Lord Saltoun who died in 1853.
Photographic recording was carried out in 2017 prior to partial demolition of the rear extension and alterations and refurbishment of existing offices, and in 2019 ahead of proposed alterations to the Council Chamber.
A watching brief was carried out between May 2017 and June 2018 by Murray Archaeological Services prior to the demolition and redevelopment to the rear of the building. The only deeper groundworks comprised the excavation of a hole for a water attenuation tank and trenches for two drains leading into it. Apart from rubble, no depth of soil was removed across the site, with no features or artefacts identified. A dark humic layer below the rubble would appear to have been the medieval and late medieval ground surface. However, the lack of either artefacts or features suggests a fairly low density of population, at least in this area of the town, possibly because it was behind the original civic buildings.
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Historic Environment Records (HER)