Grand Hotel and Hamiltion Hall, Gillespie Terrace, St Andrews

A monumental Francois I style university residence and former hotel designed by James M Monro in 1895, occupying a prominent corner site. The building is 4 storeys with basement and attic, constructed in Bute red sandstone with distinctive architectural features throughout.

The composition is dominated by two corner towers with domes and a mansard roof. The ground floor features a cill course and band courses, with some segmental-headed openings. The upper storeys display round-arched framing to windows on the 3rd floor, pedimented dormer windows with shaped gablehead details, and stone transoms and mullions throughout.

The north-west angle tower is a 6-stage structure with a slightly projecting first stage featuring Doric-columned and corniced window treatments. The raised basement window has small round-headed windows on flanking canted returns. The second stage contains a 4-light transomed bipartite window with similar fenestration to the canted returns. Each stage above repeats this bipartite window pattern. The 3rd stage window has a moulded apron, and the 5th stage windows are set within round-arched framing. Above a cornice and deep blocking course rises a tall polygonal fibreglass dome.

The north elevation facing The Scores is 4 bays wide with a raised basement. The outer left and right-of-centre bays have canted sections with 6-light transomed windows; the outer right and left-of-centre bays feature 6-light segmental-headed windows. The left outer bay includes a door to the centre light. The first and second floors repeat the canted bay pattern from below with bipartite windows to remaining bays. The third floor has further bipartite windows. The attic contains paired small round-headed windows to both left and outer right bays. The left bay terminates in a broad curvilinear, finialled and pedimented gable with three wreaths carved in the gablehead, while the right bay has a small shaped and pedimented gable. A small bipartite pedimented dormer window occupies the bay to the right of centre.

The west elevation facing Golf Place spans 7 bays and includes a domed tower-like bay at the outer right. Canted bays occur at ground, first and second floor levels to bays 2, 4 and 6. A projecting Doric-columned porch with cornice and deep blocking course extends across the first and second bays at ground level. Fenestration is regular throughout, with transomed and mullioned windows and alternate segmental-headed windows to the ground floor, transomed and mullioned windows to the first floor, and bipartite windows above. The attic displays small paired round-headed windows with shaped gableheads to bays 1 and 6, flanking four small pedimented dormer windows. Three large ridge stacks sit along the roofline.

The south elevation adjoins a lower irregular terrace and is largely blank above basement level, featuring only a tall round-headed ceramic-tiled niche at centre.

The courtyard elevation, which is totally enclosed, contains two bipartite stair windows and irregular fenestration.

Roofing is of grey slates with coped ashlar stacks and ashlar-coped skews with decorative skewputts. Windows combine plate glass glazing in casement and timber sash and case formats. The stair windows feature leaded and coloured patterned glass.

Interior features include good decorative plasterwork cornices and ceilings, architraved doorways and some dado rails. The hall contains Corinthian-capitalled columns and a dog-leg timber staircase with carved newel posts and decoratively-glazed stair windows. The Dining Hall features plasterwork panels, panelled timber soffits and shutters with brass handles and opening mechanism, along with deep hoodmoulds over two small round-headed windows at the north angle. The Regents' Room on the first floor contains a carved timber fire surround.