Former Drill Hall, Castle Street, Dornoch

The building is a complex of structures dating from the 1840s to the early 20th century. It originally comprised a former jail, a drill hall, and a rifle range, and is currently used as commercial premises.

The Old Jail, constructed in 1842-44, is a three-story, four-bay rectangular building designed in a symmetrical Scottish Baronial style by Thomas Brown. It was later adapted for use by the Sutherland Rifle Volunteers around 1880. A two-story, two-bay L-plan office block in Scots Baronial style, along with a rear hall, was added in 1896-7, extending from the west end of the jail. An early 20th-century rifle range runs south from the drill hall. To the east of the Old Jail is a small, enclosed courtyard with high walls, featuring an arched opening in the east wall and a studded door in the north wall.

The Castle Street elevation is of ashlar sandstone, while the side elevations and the rear drill hall are of squared coursed rubble. The building occupies a prominent position on a main street in Dornoch, close to the former County Buildings and Castle, and opposite Dornoch Cathedral. The outer bays of the Old Jail project forward, featuring crowstepped gables with stone cross finials and dummy corner bartizan towers, while smaller crowstepped gablets are above the central bay windows. The drill hall front also has a crowstepped gable and a matching bartizan tower at its west end. A base course extends to hoodmoulds above the ground floor windows and doors, and an inscribed and dated panel sits above the drill hall entrance. Round-headed window openings are in the outer bays of the Old Jail, and an elliptical recessed entrance door leads to the drill hall. The rear hall has round-headed windows.

The Old Jail has mainly 12-pane timber sash and case windows, while the drill hall has 6-light mullioned and transomed windows on both the ground and first floors. Grey slates cover all roofs, and corniced chimney stacks with yellow clay cans are present on the ridge and gable ends of the Old Jail. The drill hall ridge has ventilator finials.

Visible interior features from 2016 include mid-19th-century fittings within the jail, such as metal-studded timber cell doors, stone-flagged floors, and ventilator grills in the walls and ceilings, some with original operating mechanisms. The drill hall retains elements of its late 19th-century design, including a timber-boarded dado in the hallway, timber panelled doors, a timber staircase, and a first-floor room with a simple coved ceiling and moulded plasterwork. The drill hall itself retains some coloured glass and now has a later mezzanine floor supported by columns, set back from the walls.