Corn Exchange, 200 High Street And 61 St Andrew Street, Dalkeith

The Corn Exchange, built in 1853 to a Jacobean design by David Cousin, occupies a prominent position bridging High Street and St Andrew Street in Dalkeith. The building is comprised of two blocks, presenting a symmetrical twin-gabled façade to High Street and a large gabled elevation to St Andrew Street, which serves as the Exchange Hall.

The main elevations are constructed of random, variegated, stugged sandstone ashlar, with random rubble forming the side elevations. Ashlar dressings are used throughout, and the entrances feature moulded Tudor-arched surrounds for the two-leaf doors. Mullioned windows, some with transoms, are a key feature, with chamfered reveals and delicate relieving arches above the first-floor windows.

The west (High Street) elevation is characterised by a broad central door, above which is a hoodmould incorporating the Buccleuch arms and two monogrammed shields, alongside a shield dated "1853". A further corbelled panel displays a four-line inscription ("The Earth is the Lord's and the fulness thereof, Thou crownest the year with Thy goodness"), acting as the base for a gabled ashlar bellcote containing a bell between the gableheads of the outer bays. Ashlar coping flanks the bellcote base. Smaller doors are positioned in the outer bays, flanked by tripartite windows towards the centre. Two large five-light transomed windows are visible at the first floor. Similar hoodmoulded bipartite windows are within the gableheads. A deep base course and angle buttresses are present, along with a cornice below the gableheads, and ashlar detailing at the roof apex. Ball finials and weathervanes adorn all gableheads, although a finial is missing from the bellcote gable.

The east (St Andrew Street) elevation includes a broad central door, with two smaller doors in the outer bays. It features two five-light transomed clerestory windows and a hoodmoulded tripartite window in the gablehead. A rubble wall, linked to the adjoining building at No 59 St Andrew Street, runs alongside.

The north elevation is blank, featuring coped rubble buttresses, some set-off between bays. A gablehead stack from the High Street block is situated to the right. A modern entrance has been inserted in the outer left bay, and a modern addition is adjoined to the third bay from the left. Electricity insulators are positioned in the second bay from the right. The south elevation mirrors the north, with a later one-storey lean-to addition that encloses the lower section of the buttresses.

The building is topped with grey slates, coped skews, and bracketted skewputts. The roof features damaged fleur-de-lis ridge tiles. A double row of nine-light roof-lights runs along both pitches of the west roof; these have been replaced with purple slates on the east side. Three ridge ventilators are present on the south pitch, and one on the north. A pigeon loft is located on the west gablehead of the main roof.

The interior comprises offices to the west, and an open hall with an overhanging gallery to the west, featuring barley sugar balusters and a five-bay Tudor-arched arcaded screen. The hall also includes a timber hammerbeam roof, Tudor-arched doorways, and a boarded dado.