Sheriff Court, Castlehill

The Sheriff Court at Castlehill is a court house built between 1869 and 1871 by David Cousin of Edinburgh, with a single-storey wing added to the left in 1903. This building features a two-storey, three-bay design in the French Gothic style, highlighted by a three-storey tower that projects from the center. The tower has a corbelled-out belfry and is flanked by single-storey wings. At the rear, there is a two-storey wing that projects, along with a single-storey courtroom wing beyond, creating an approximate T-plan.

The principal and northeast elevations are constructed of rough-faced ashlar, while squared and snecked ashlar is used elsewhere, with droved dressings. Architectural details include a base course, a string course below the first floor cills, and eaves course, along with crowstepped gables. The entrance is set deeply within a round-arched moulded opening. The tower is flanked by triparite windows at the ground floor and a four-light mullioned and transomed window on the first floor that breaks the eaves, topped with triangular dormer heads and finials. The window reveals are stop-chamfered.

The windows are timber sash and case with plate glass. The roofs are covered in grey slate, featuring pitched roofs with modern ventilators on the main building and wings, and a piended roof on the courtroom with near-vertical end pitches. The belfry has timber louvers, and cast iron profiled gutters and downpipes, with hoppers on the principal front. The gables have coped apex stacks with round cans.

Inside, as seen in 2014, there is a stone stair with cast iron barley-twist bannisters and a timber handrail. The principal courtroom, which was refitted after a fire in 1989, boasts a vaulted ceiling with ribbed plasterwork and a decorative cornice. The pitch-pine doors feature stop-chamfered panelling.

To the right of the entrance door, there is a low ashlar coped boundary wall (with railings removed) that steps downhill and curves around to the northeast elevation, ending at a bull-faced square pier with a pyramidal droved ashlar cap. Additionally, there is a random rubble wall enclosing the rear of the buildings, intersecting with the chamfered corner of the rear wing, which includes a doorway with a vertically boarded door and a section of semi-circular cope above.