Central tower, A and B halls and former entrance wing, HMP Dumfries

HMP Dumfries, designed by Major General T B Collinson, architect to the Scottish Prison Commission, is a Victorian prison built in a castellated style and opened in 1883. The prison occupies a rectangular site enclosed by a high boundary wall of squared and coursed tooled red sandstone, with some sections replaced in brown brick. A gatehouse entrance is located to the southeast, featuring a pair of tall drum towers flanking a round arched opening with a keystone. The towers have arrowslit windows with Latin cross loopholes above. The keystone displays a carved key, surmounted by the cipher VR and a crown, representing Queen Victoria.

The prison is constructed from squared and coursed Locharbriggs red sandstone with cream Cumberland stone dressings. Originally designed as a T-plan building, it features a projecting two-storey entrance wing with an attic and basement, incorporating a porch with round arched openings and a tripartite hoodmoulded round-arched window above, along with an oculus in the attic. Behind the entrance is a prominent observation tower, dividing the former women’s and men’s wings, with splayed towers at the corners. To the left of the tower is the four-bay former women's wing (A Hall), and to the right is the ten-bay former men’s wing (B Hall). Both wings are three storeys high with a basement, and feature regularly spaced small rectangular window openings and large round-arched windows to their gable ends.

The interior of the halls, viewed in 2015, follows a corridor plan, with floors of cells opening off either side of the corridor. The design is simple and functional with few architectural details. The floors are supported on curved iron brackets, and the top floor has a chevron cornice. The basement walls are tooled, and the door surrounds have long and short quoins. The interior of the central tower has been refurbished.

Excluded from the listing are the circa 1989 gate and administrative complex to the left of the entrance tower, the circa 1967 C Hall attached to the west of the central tower, and the single-storey detached buildings to the north of the site.