6-8 Pilmuir Street, Dunfermline

6-8 Pilmuir Street, Dunfermline

A two-storey building with attic, designed by Archibald Welsh in 1911-12, originally built as a women's institute. The building is seven bays wide with a rectangular plan and employs Renaissance design principles throughout.

The principal (west) elevation is the most accomplished. It is finished in lightly droved polished sandstone ashlar with lightly droved dressings. A round-arched entrance sits in the second bay from the right, with a deep splayed reveal decorated with fruit and animal motifs and outer moulding to the arch. The entrance door is a two-leaf panelled timber door with a replacement fanlight. Flanking the entrance are two-light mullioned windows set within recessed panels adjoining aprons of two-light windows above. To the right of the entrance is another two-light window in a recessed panel with an apron. Vertical band courses flank the entrance architrave and rise to meet the cornice at first floor cill level.

Below the eaves cornice sits a panel formerly bearing the name of the institute, with pendant garlands on either side set within a frieze, flanked by swagged panels. Above this are pedimented windows with outer architraves. The date 1912 is intertwined into a cartouche at the centre of the central pediment, with flanking finials to the pediment and foliage and scrolls at the base of the window. Flanking windows have cornices surmounted by monogrammed cartouches set against strapwork.

The ground floor to the left features four large windows, all nine-light with mullions and transoms except the outer left, whose bottom three lights are now occupied by a later twentieth-century inserted entrance. Above these are four-light mullion and transom windows to each bay. The first floor has pedimented dormer windows above, three in total, each with flanking finials and one at the apex of the pediment. The attic is lit by four piended rectangular dormers.

The south elevation steps down slightly in two stages to the right. It has a central entrance with a late twentieth-century pedimented timber architrave and panelled door. To the left are two levels of blocked two-light mullioned windows and single lights, with irregular fenestration above. To the right is a double entrance, altered with one opening blocked, flanked by single light windows to two levels and a two-light mullion above. Three larger two-light windows light the first floor.

The east elevation is regularly fenestrated across five central bays. Each bay has a large ground floor window, with a large rectangular piened two-light breaking eaves dormer above, the eaves cornice functioning as a transom. The outer bays are slightly taller, chamfered at their outer edges and at the upper inner edges, with two-light transom windows to the first floor. The outer right has a large ground floor window and the outer left a small window at lower level.

The north elevation adjoins Nos 10-14 Pilmuir Street. Its upper sections are blank, with a visible inner recess or light well to the right of centre.

Throughout, the building features a dentilled eaves cornice with scrolled brackets to the principal elevation and part of the south elevation. The base course and band course above ground floor windows are detailed throughout. Chamfered reveals articulate all openings. To elevations other than the principal, snecked sandstone is used with stugged finish. A moulded cornice, partially adjoining first floor cills, and eaves cornice run throughout.

The fenestration includes multi-pane casements and sashes to the upper floors, with mostly leaded fixed lights (some incorporating Art Nouveau motifs) to the ground floor of the principal elevation.

The roof is covered in grey slate, partially piended to the rear. Gableheads to the north and south carry stone stacks with coped band courses and round cans. A ridge stack sits between them, and a semi-wallhead stack stands to the south. Three original cast-iron drainpipes with bulbous rainwater heads are present on the principal elevation.

The ground floor interior has been substantially altered. The building retains Grade C listing status.