School Tower, St Andrew's Rc Pro-Cathedral, Shakespeare Street, Dumfries is a Grade B listed building in the Dumfries and Galloway local planning authority area, Scotland. First listed on 6 March 1981.
School Tower, St Andrew's Rc Pro-Cathedral, Shakespeare Street, Dumfries
- WRENN ID
- spare-step-vale
- Grade
- B
- Local Planning Authority
- Dumfries and Galloway
- Constituency
- Dumfries and Galloway MP: John Cooper (Con)
- Country
- Scotland
- Date first listed
- 6 March 1981
- OS grid reference
- NX 974 761
- Coordinates
- 55.06879, -3.60717
- Source
- Historic Environment Scotland listing
Description
The Steeple Tower at St Andrew's Roman Catholic Pro-Cathedral on Shakespeare Street in Dumfries consists of two similar Romanesque towers that are now free-standing, following the burning of the pro-cathedral in 1961. Both towers are square in plan, face west, and feature round-arched doors, openings, and recessed panels, along with clasping pilaster strips and louvred bipartite belfries in their top stages. Some arcaded corbel tables are also present. The towers are constructed from red ashlar, with exposed rubble where the church once connected.
The north tower was designed by the Honourable Marmaduke C Maxwell of Terregles and built in 1843, alongside a now-demolished school. It has four stages and features a pair of tall round-arched panels in the third stage. The shallow-pitched, slated pyramidal capping suggests that there was an original intention to add a spire.
The south tower was designed by John H Bell, possibly from Dumfries, and was completed by 1858, when a lucarned tall Gothic broach spire, measuring 135 feet high excluding the 12-foot cross finial, was added by Alexander Fraser of Dumfries. This tower has three tall stages and displays a modern sculpture of St Andrew on its east face.
Some fragments of the church walling also remain.
Local climate
School Tower, St Andrew's Rc Pro-Cathedral, Shakespeare Street, Dumfries sits in one of the wettest parts of the UK, with an average of 1,230 mm of rain a year. This makes it wetter than 92% of listed buildings in the UK. Its exposure to wind-driven rain is greater than that of 85% of listed buildings.
It experiences an average of 49 freeze-thaw cycles a year, more than 91% of listed buildings. Of these, 25 follow at least 1 mm of rain in the preceding 48 hours. Average temperatures at this location have risen by 0.3°C per decade since 1991.
Averages for 1991–2020; temperature trend 1991–2025. Figures describe the wider area (a grid cell of roughly 10 km), not the individual site. Contains modified Copernicus Climate Change Service information 2026.
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- No sale records on file
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- Flood risk assessment
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- Weather exposure and heating demand — rain and frost month by month and year by year, wind direction, solar and humidity
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