Muirkirk Institute, Furnace Road, Muirkirk

The Muirkirk Institute, built in 1904, is a single-story, five-bay former institute originally serving the Kaimes Ironworks. It is constructed of tooled, squared, and snecked red sandstone with polished ashlar margins. The building includes a base course, chamfered reveals, long and short quoins, an eaves course, and decorative stone finials to the gables.

The northwest elevation, the principal facade, is asymmetrical with five bays. An engaged, square-plan entrance tower is positioned in the penultimate bay to the right, featuring modern steps leading to a two-leaf timber door flanked to the right by a single window. Above the doorway are two blind tablets. The upper stage of the tower has decoratively chamfered and corbelled angles, with clock faces on all but the rear elevation. The tower is topped with a pyramidal spire and a weathervane. A gabled bay is advanced to the outer right, with a tripartite window in the center and single windows to the returns. A tripartite window is located to the left of the entrance tower, with an advanced gablet breaking the eaves. A bipartite window is situated in the penultimate bay to the left, and a further kneelered gabled bay is advanced to the outer left, containing a flat timber door flanked by a single window.

The southwest elevation is also asymmetrical, with four bays and three gabled bays to the left, each with regular fenestration. A gabled bay is advanced to the right, featuring a single window in the centre. The southeast elevation presents an asymmetrical six-bay configuration with an advanced bay to the third bay from the right and a piend-roofed addition in the center, abuting a flat-roofed addition to the left. A single, gabled return to the left has a tall tripartite window; to the right are two bays, with a gabled bay to the left containing a tall tripartite window, followed by a tripartite window on the right. Two recessed bays are on the right, with a modern doorway and a window. A slightly advanced bay is located to the third bay from the left, housing a window, with two recessed bays flanking it, and a window to the right, adjacent to a doorway.

The northeast elevation features a single window positioned off-center to the left.

Window openings were boarded up in 2000. The building has a grey-green slate roof with a terracotta ridge, along with coped stone skews with blocked skewputts. A single brick wallhead stack incorporates a circular can, and cast-iron rainwater goods are also present.

The interior is largely modernised, although some original arches, cornicing, panelling, doors, and dado rails remain.

A single gothic gatepier, constructed of red sandstone with decorative gablets, survives to the southwest, along with some sections of coped red sandstone walling.