Vicars Chambers, 27-31 Vicar Street, Falkirk

Vicars Chambers is a tenement building of 1903, designed by Alex Cullen and situated in Falkirk. It is a four-storey building with eight bays above ground level, incorporating shops at ground floor and commercial premises on the first floor. A prominent feature is the ogee-roofed corner tower and the Baroque detailing throughout.

The building is constructed of polished ashlar, with squared and snecked rubble to the sides and rear, and ashlar dressings. The shops have a deep fascia and cornice, as does the eaves cornice. The west elevation, facing Vicar Street, features a bay to the left of centre at ground floor with a round-headed doorpiece bearing the inscription “VICAR CHAMBERS” beneath a corbelled segmental hoodmould and blind panel. The shops to either side have fixed display windows, though these are partially obscured by modern fascias; the shop on the left has a two-leaf panelled timber door and plate glass fanlight. A later, broad Art Deco style doorpiece is located to the outer right, also beneath the cornice. The bays above ground floor are vertically emphasised, grouped as 1-2-1-2-2. Bays 1, 7 and 8 have six-light round-headed windows, with bay 8 also breaking the eaves into a triangular pediment with flanking pinnacles and a set-back polygonal tower with a deep cornice and a finialled lead roof. At bay 4, a single window at the first floor is topped by a keystoned semicircular pediment with flanking corbels at the base of full-height chimneys. Single windows are present in the remaining bays, with those to the second and third floors set into panels.

The north elevation is a plain gable with stacks flanking the gablehead. The rear (east) elevation has flat-roofed single-storey bays projecting at ground level and a largely regular fenestration pattern to the set-back face, with two stair windows at the centre, the lower of which has been altered.

The window glazing patterns are four- and six-pane over plate glass lower sashes on the west elevation, while the east elevation has plate glass glazing in timber sash and case windows. The building features coped ashlar stacks with cans and ashlar-coped skews.

The interior of the stairway has decoratively-bordered ceramic brick dadoes and panelled timber doors with small-pane top lights to the first floor. The shop at No. 35 has plain cornices.