The Royal Hotel, Tower Street, Tain

The Royal Hotel, located on Tower Street in Tain, was designed by Maitland and Sons in 1872 and showcases a French Gothic style. The building is constructed from tooled ashlar stone with polished ashlar dressings. It stands three storeys above a basement and features five wide bays, with a prominent tower on the northern gable facing Tower Street.

The outer gabled bays project forward and include tripartite windows on the first floor and round-arched bipartite windows on the second floor, both adorned with pointed hoodmoulds. Bracketed balconies are present on both the first and second floors. The three recessed central bays contain an entrance beneath a colonnaded veranda, which features three segmental-headed arches and a balcony above. The central window on the first and second floors is vertically united under a hoodmould, with gabled windows on the second floor. There are two gabletted and bargeboarded dormers, and the central balcony is decorated with a stone and cast-iron balustrade.

The building has end and ridge corniced stacks, and a steeply pitched slate roof with tiled ridge cresting. The four-storey tower is topped with a steep pyramidal roof, gabletted openings, and an ornate cast-iron finial.