Wigtown Town Hall (Former Wigtown Sheriff Court), The Square, Wigtown

Wigtown Town Hall was designed by Thomas Brown II in 1862-3 and incorporates some elements of an earlier 1756 building on the same site. It is a 2-storey, 8-bay, rectangular-plan French Gothic former court house and county hall, with a tower in the north elevation and a large mansard attic. It is built in polished, squared and snecked red sandstone with contrasting cream sandstone dressings. There is a string course between the ground and first floor, a string course at the first floor that links the hoodmoulds over the windows and a moulded eaves course. All the ground floor windows are bi or tripartite with stone mullions and have carved shields over each window. The first floor windows are all 2-light pointed-arches with cusped rose lights in the arch-heads. The building has tall mansard slate roofs, lead finials at the corners and wallhead chimney stacks with tall octagonal cans at the north and south elevations. There are a pair of small, louvered gabled ventilators on the front roof pitch.

The principal (west) elevation is symmetrical and has a central tripartite porch, with paired buttresses flanking the door and supporting consoles of the balustraded first floor balcony surmounted by 2 heraldic stone lions. The entrance has a moulded pointed-arch surround with the Wigtown burgh arms carved in the tympanum over the shouldered doorway that has double-leaf panelled doors. The windows are all sash and case frames with a multi-pane glazing pattern; 3 to each ground floor light, 4 to the first floor lights.

The north elevation has 3 bays with a central projecting 3-stage tower. The door to the left has the arms of the burgh reset from the earlier 1756 building. There are string courses between the tower stages and single lights at the ground and first stage. The second stage has clock faces set in louvered 3-light openings and a corbelled ashlar balcony on the north elevation. The eaves course has a deep carved corbelled cornice and decorative dragon gargoyles at the corners. The tower has a tall mansard roof with lucarnes and brattishing. There is a pair of small, louvered gabled ventilators dormers.

The interior was partially seen in 2014. The upper county hall (former courtroom) has timber boarding to dado height on each wall and a stage. The ceiling is coombed with rib and pendant plasterwork. The ribbed plasterwork design of the hall is repeated in the other rooms, corridors and stairwell. The doorways and window openings have pointed arches. The central cantilevered stone stair has a barley twist balustrade with a glazed skylight above. There is a barrel-vaulted cell at the ground floor, to the right of north entrance, which is a remnant from the earlier 1756 building.

The front and side elevations have painted metal railings on low stone walls with chamfered angles. There is a pair of lamp standards with decorative twisted barley poles on octagonal bases flanking the entrance of the building.