British Linen Bank, 25 Olrig Street, Thurso

The British Linen Bank, located at 25 Olrig Street in Thurso, was designed by J M Dick Peddie from Edinburgh and built in 1897. This impressive building features two storeys and an attic, with a wide four-bay facade made of polished ashlar on the southwest street front. The northwest gable is also ashlar, while the southeast gable and rear are constructed from rubble, accented with polished ashlar dressings.

The street facade showcases narrow paired centre bays that include a round-headed entrance and flanking round-headed windows, both adorned with decorative fanlights. The first floor features paired centre windows and a tall, shaped gable with a finial, which displays a relief carving of Britannia at the apex. The wide outer bays contain transom and mullion windows on both floors.

Giant panelled pilaster strips with Ionic capitals define the bays and culminate in a high coped parapet. The building is detailed with moulded cills, lintels, and gable cornices, along with a decorative band course at the gable. The parapet extends across the southeast gable as a corbelled and corniced band course, which surrounds the upper first floor window that has a segmental-headed pediment, moulded jambs, and a bracketed cill, flanked by single transomed windows in the outer bays of the first floor.

The entrance to the manager's house is located in the northwest gable, featuring some two-pane glazing. There is a small modern box dormer on the front elevation and an original pedimented dormer at the rear. The building has corniced end ridge stacks and a slate roof.