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Kirriemuir - The Town House

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The in-depth historical notes on this page were provided by the Friends of the Gateway to the Glens Museum and are published here with the kind permission of that organization. The text was taken from a celebratory calendar that the Friends produced in 2004 for the quatercentenary of the building. The photos are from the collection of The Capital Scot. See © notices.

See more about the Friends of the Gateway to the Glens last below.

[The Town Square]
The Town House in the Town Square - 1940s

At the right of this photo is the old gaol (i.e., jail) in the town square of Kirriemuir. It is now the Friends of the Gateway to the Glens Museum and is the oldest building in the town. It dates to the 17th Century. It has served as a toltbooth, court, jail (until 1896), post office, sorting and telegraphy offices, police station and a chemist's shop. At the time of this photo it was the location of Kidd's Chemist shop which later relocated.

The Kirriemuir Gateway to the Glens Museum was officially opened on 18th May 2001. Archaeological examination has recently confirmed what has long been believed: that several parts of its walls, especially on the south side, date from 1604, when the town's Tollbooth was built. Local red sandstone was the building material used, and its durability is evidenced in many properties built in the late 18th century. The Town House is therefore acknowledged to be, at least in part, the oldest extant building in Kirriemuir.

1604-1833 The Town House of Kirriemuir was originally rectangular, built as the Tollbooth for the turnpike road to Forfar, and as such would have incorporated a jail. When the Earls of Angus held sway over the Regality of Kirriemuir, their Regality Courts were held in the upper courtroom, entered by the central door. During the heyday of handloom weaving, roughly between the 1750s and 1880s, the upper flat was the Stamp House where webs were rigorously inspected. On market days, women would sit on the curved Buttermarket steps to sell their eggs, chickens and butter, wrapped in cabbage leaves.

1833-1862 About 1833, the outside stair and clay walls were removed. An internal stair and ground floor doorways were installed. The entrance to the courtroom was by the door on the eastern side of the front wall, and a dumb entrance was made at the western side. The prison 16' long, 12' wide and 8' high - was inspected in 1837 and found to be tolerably secure. Two small wooden police cells within the courtroom were also mentioned. The Baron Bailie, a magistrate under the recently adopted Local Police Act, was congratulated on restoring order to the town, which had previously been in a very turbulent state. This was largely because the weavers were a militant lot and prone to rioting when displeased!

[The Old Gaol]
The Town House - June 1957

1862 The Police Commissioner's Report of 1859 described the Town House as an eyesore and a disgrace to the community so the Meigle architect, John Carver, was asked by the Earl of Home's factor to design improvements. He added bows to the west and north sides, and a clock tower between them. The Burgh Courtroom and Officers residence were upstairs, and the prison and Police Constabulary Office downstairs.

1862-1896 The walls of the old jail, on the west side of the ground floor, were found in 1860 to be up to 1.4m thick, and said to date from 1604. The survey carried out in 2000 uncovered foundations of both the north and west walls dating from then. Most of the present upper storey windows date from 1862. The clock was paid for by public subscription.

1896 With the arrival of steam-driven looms in the factories in the 1870s, the Stamp House ceased to exist. New laws changed the court and policing systems, making the Town House itself virtually redundant for quite a while. The architect, D. Waterston, made radical changes: the urinal eyesore was done away with; the 1862 tower stairway was removed and a ground-level front door made into the new Post Office; a door and internal stair were made in the south wall for postmen to use to get up to the Sorting Office; various walls were thinned and floor levels changed; ground floor bow windows were enlarged and new fireplaces installed. Mr. David Buchanan combined his roles as Postmaster and Chemist under one impressive roof!

[The Old Gaol]
The Town House - October 1977

(It looks as if the bus is still there!)

1920s-1940s By the 1930s, the family business of booksellers and printers, W. B. Mills, had flitted into their part of the Town House. For 60 years, since October 1st, 1869, they had published Kirriemuir's first newspaper, The Kirriemuir Observer, from the larger property on the corner of Bank Street and the High Street, and continued to do so from here. By 1924 the chemist was Mr. Thomas Martin.

1940s-1990s In 1949, the firm of James Norrie Ltd. which had published The Kirriemuir Free Press (founded in 1884) amalgamated the two papers, and before long, operated solely from their main premises at 39 High Street. By 1950, the name of E. A. Kidd was above the chemist's door and that business utilised all of the Town House until 1992.

1983 Traditionally, Town Houses usually displayed the Burgh Coat of Arms of the superior of the district. Kirriemuir, created a free Burgh of Barony and Regality under the Douglas Earls of Angus in 1510, adopted the Douglas Arms and motto only in 1892, long after it had become a Police Burgh in 1834. By 1982 the Coat of Arms were illegible and the Community Council commissioned Bruce Walker to sculpt them anew. The motto Jamais Arriere means Never Behind and the three mullets (stars) refer to the three privileges granted to the Douglases in return for their service to King and Country: that they should have first vote in Parliament; lead the van of the army, i.e. out in front, into battle, and carry the crown on public occasions. The heart commemorates the fact that Good Sir James Douglas was killed when bearing the heart of Robert the Bruce to the Holy Land.

1992-2001 The Town House became the property of the Provost, Magistrates and Councillors of the Burgh of Kirriemuir in 1973, and was taken over by Tayside Regional Council a decade later.

The objects of the Friends of the Gateway to the Glens Museum are to advance the education of the public through the creation of a better understanding of and participation in the preservation of the historical, cultural and built heritage of Kirriemuir and its environs. The Friends also seek to:
    Encourage and assist members of the local community and other voluntary groups to value, collect, display and enjoy historical and cultural artefacts relevant to the area by mounting displays, making presentations and undertaking research;
    Develop skills and extend knowledge of topical problems as they relate to the recording of local history;
    Raise awareness of the artefacts, skills and activities within the Gateway to the Glens Museum.
See the Friends information leaflet [Adobe Acrobat 28KB] and application form [Adobe Acrobat 28KB].

Text © Copyright Friends of the Gateway to the Glens Museum 2004

Kirriemuir - The Town House - text by Friends of the Gateway to the Glens Museum about the Town House is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

Kirriemuir - The Town House - text by Friends of the Gateway to the Glens Museum about the Town House is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 UK: Scotland License.