Former Dornoch County Buildings and Court House, Castle Street, Dornoch

The Former Dornoch County Buildings and Court House, designed by Thomas Brown II and built between 1849 and 1850, is a two-storey, three-bay building in the Gothic Tudor style. Its main façade is symmetrical, featuring a projecting central block flanked by lower two-storey, single-bay wings. The structure is made of tooled ashlar with polished ashlar dressings.

The central block has an arcaded loggia on the ground floor, which includes three round-headed arches connected by a hoodmould and string course. A recessed central round-headed doorway is topped with a fanlight and flanked by narrow windows. On the first floor, the central bay features triple round-arched lancets that rise into a crowstepped gable. The flanking windows are long and sit beneath pedimented gablets adorned with thistle and fleur-de-lys decorative finials. The wings also have round-headed windows with similar gablets above the first-floor windows. At the apex of the east gable, there is a simple bellcote with crowsteps. The building has corniced end stacks, a slate roof, and a stone ridge course. Notably, there is a First World War memorial plaque dedicated to the Seaforth Highlanders above the central arcade.

While the interior was not accessible for viewing in 2014, it is known to contain a first-floor courtroom featuring a shallow pitched Gothic arch ribbed ceiling with painted bosses along the central ridge, along with predominantly original courtroom fittings from 1850 and a carved Royal coat of arms of Scotland from 1914. There is a shallow timber gallery opposite the bench with moulded panels, as well as a stone stair with a cast iron balustrade and timber handrail. The secondary rooms, offices, and passages include decorative cornicing, panelled doors, and several fireplaces, many of which are now boarded up.