Brown's Institute, 72 Main Street, Newmilns

Brown's Institute, located at 72 Main Street in Newmilns, was built in 1869. This two-storey building features a classical design with four bays across the front and three bays along the side, and it has a distinctive curved corner. It serves as a town institute, housing a library and recreation rooms. The exterior is constructed of red sandstone, which is bull-faced and coursed, with smooth squared and snecked stone at the rear and in the recessed bay. It has an ashlar base course, giant angle pilasters, a modillioned cornice, a blocking course, architraved windows, and lugged windows on the first floor, with deeply battered cills on the ground floor.

On the Main Street elevation, there is an ashlar pilastered and corniced doorpiece in the second bay from the right, featuring the inscription 'Brown's Institute' carved on the frieze and the date '1870' on the blocking course. The doorpiece has cavetto jambs and includes two-leaf, chevron boarded doors with decorative hinges and a plate glass fanlight. The remaining bays have regular fenestration.

The corner bay is curved and features framing pilasters, with a stone mullioned tripartite window on each floor, both having deeply battered cills. On the Craigview Road elevation, there are two widely spaced bays in the center and to the right, with a wallhead between them flanked by consoles and carved with the date '1869'. To the left, there is a recessed bay with a window on each floor and a return on the center bay.

The rear elevations are adjacent to a single-storey shop on Main Street and have a blank elevation with a wallhead stack. There is an alley between this building and the neighboring property on Craigview Road. The windows are timber sash and case with 4-pane glazing, and the side lights of the tripartite windows have plate glass, although some were blocked in 1997. The roof is covered with grey slate and has wallhead stacks.

The interior was not seen in 1997, but it features plaster roses on the ceilings. Additionally, there is a courtyard wall made of squared stone with semicircular coping that encloses a small court on Craigview Road, along with pyramidally capped ashlar gatepiers.