Rothesay Town Hall and County Buildings

The Town Hall bell

The building was built on the site of an earlier tolbooth which incorporated cells for petty prisoners.[2][3] The new building was designed by James Dempster of Greenock in the Gothic Revival style, built in ashlar stone at a cost of £4,000 and was completed in 1835.[4][5]

The design involved a symmetrical main frontage with seven bays facing onto Castle Street; the central bay, which slightly projected forward, took the form of a four-stage tower.[1] The tower featured an arched doorway on the ground floor, flanked by piers and brackets supporting a canopy, as well as a three-light bay window on the second floor, a pair of lancet windows on third floor and a clock above: it was castellated at the top and had prominent corner turrets.[1] The clock was paid for by John Crichton-Stuart, 2nd Marquess of Bute as a gift to the town,[6] while the town hall bell was manufactured by John C. Wilson of the Gorbals Brass and Bell Foundry in Glasgow.[7] The sections on either side of the tower were fenestrated with three-light sash windows on the ground floor and three-light mullioned windows on the second floor, while the outer bays contained lancet windows on the first floor.[1] Internally, the principal rooms were the courtroom, the town clerk's office and sheriff clerk's office.[2] The town clerk was responsible for the administration of the royal burgh of Rothesay,[8] while hearings of the sheriff's court, the burgh court and the magistrates' court all took place in the courtroom.[2] A dedicated prison block was erected behind the main building in 1865.[1]

Following the implementation of the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1889, which established a uniform system of county councils in Scotland and realigned the boundaries of many of Scotland's counties, Bute County Council was created in 1890: the office of the county clerk was also established in the building.[9]

The building continued to serve as the headquarters of both Rothesay Burgh Council and Bute County Council until both bodies were replaced by Argyll and Bute District Council in 1975.[10] The new district council continued to use the building for the delivery of local services and it remained the venue for sheriff's court hearings.[11] An extensive programme of refurbishment works, to a design by Collective Architecture, was completed in March 2011: the works, which cost £4.3 million, involved the re-modelling of the complex around a new courtyard to the rear of the main building and the conversion of the interior of the complex into 25 new apartments.[12] The town hall bell was recovered during the conversion and put on display in a small garden at the junction of High Street and Montague Street in 2016.[7]

• List of listed buildings in Rothesay, Bute