The Mechanics Institute, 54-56 High Street, Dysart

The Mechanics Institute, located at 54-56 High Street in Dysart, was designed by James Aitken and completed in 1874, with alterations made in 1898 by D Forbes Smith. This building is a two-storey and attic structure with five bays above ground, featuring a rectangular plan. It serves as a restaurant and public house, with the first floor closed, and is part of an irregular terrace that includes the Dysart Tolbooth to the southwest.

The exterior is finished with painted, stugged ashlar at the ground level and squared, snecked rubble with painted margins on the first floor. It has a base course and a cornice at the ground floor. The ground level features a round-arched arcade with stone mullions and stop-chamfered arrises.

On the northwest (principal) elevation, the central bay has a bracketed cornice above a deep-set, two-leaf panelled timber door with a radial-astragalled fanlight. To the right, there are three windows, and to the left, there are two windows along with another similar door on the outer left. A slightly advanced crowstepped gablet is positioned over the main entrance, which includes a panelled apron to a bipartite window and displays the Burgh Arms on a dated panel in the gablehead, topped with a thistle finial. There are two windows in the flanking bays.

The southeast (rear) elevation shows asymmetrical fenestration and features a mansard roof. The ground floor windows have a lying-pane glazing pattern in timber sash and case style, while the first-floor windows are blocked. The roof is covered with graded grey slates, and there are coped ashlar stacks and ashlar-coped skews with moulded skewputts. The building also has square-section gutters with decorative brackets and cast-iron downpipes with decorative fixings.

The interior of the ground floor has been modernized, while the first floor was not seen during the inspection in 1997.