Town Hall, Betson Street, Markinch

Dated 1876, tower and porch added 1897, probably Gillespie and Scott. Gabled hall with single storey porch and 3-stage tower. Cement render and squared and snecked rubble, ashlar quoins and dressings; chamfered plinth, moulded string course and band course. Tabbed margins and stone mullions.

NW TOWER: 1st stage: basement level to N with steps down to round-headed door; deep-set timber door in ogee-lintelled doorway with voussoirs to W, window to N and abutting hall to S; windows to W and N at 2nd stage, abutting hall to S and tall stair window in advanced gabled bay. 3rd stage: square tablet to W face inscribed "Presented to the Burgh by J T Smith, JP, 55 years a partner of the firm R Tullis & Coy - 1897", narrow arrowslit above to each face; large, semicircular, voussoired, windows breaking band course on each face below cavetto cornice with water spout at NW, SW and SE corner, all surmounted by coped parapet with balustrades at centre of each face.

W (ENTRANCE) ELEVATION: slightly advanced, large single storey, flat-roofed porch adjoining tower to N and masking full-width of earlier hall behind; 2-leaf panelled timber door with plate glass fanlight in lugged, architraved doorcase at centre with bipartite windows in flanking bays, ashlar coping to wallhead swept up at corners. Wide gablehead to hall behind with large window surmounted by date stone inscribed 1876, flanked by adjacent smaller windows; square ashlar pedestal at apex with gablet to each face and decorative cast-iron weathervane.

N ELEVATION: 5 tall windows regularly spaced with lower lean-to entrance to outer left.

S ELEVATION: projecting gable to outer left with bipartite window at 1st floor, further detail obscured.

Mainly small-pane glazing to upper and 2-pane glazing to lower sashes with lying 22-pane glazing pattern to hall windows. Grey slates. Ashlar sawtooth coping to skews; cast-iron downpipes with decorative rainwater hoppers, that on S elevation dated 1876.

INTERIOR: boarded, open-beamed ceiling, collar and hammer-braced, resting on scrolled corbels.

GATEPIERS AND RAILINGS: pair of battered ashlar gatepiers with pyramidal heads; decorative railing linking 1 pier to tower.