Lochmaddy Court

Lochmaddy Court is a 2-storey, L-shaped court house built in 1875, with an addition in 1892. Designed by James Matthews and William Lawrie, and later Alexander Ross and Robert John McBeth, it occupies a corner site in a rural settlement, situated on a slope falling towards the rear. The principal block is a symmetrical 3-bay design, accompanied by a lower 3-bay section forming a second entrance to the east, and a small single storey bay beyond. A later single-storey range was added to the west gable in 1892. The exterior is rendered, with ashlar quoins and window dressings. It features pointed openings, some with hoodmoulds, a continuous string course between floors with angled and chamfered quoins below and a corbelled effect at first floor level. A shallow stone entrance porch with an angled top and brattishing is present at the north entrance, featuring three dormer windows and a finalled detail above the courtroom. Tripartite windows are found in the gables. A shouldered and crenulated stone doorpiece marks the east entrance, with a plain dormer above. A small gable belfry detail decorates the south gable.

The building has boarded, 2-leaf entrance doors and timber sash and case windows with non-original glazing patterns, including fixed panes at the arch points. The roof has replacement slates with projecting eaves and rendered end stacks.

The interior, as seen in 2014, retains a good, gothic-style decorative scheme, with substantial carved timber detailing throughout. The ground floor corridor has dado panelling and 4-panel timber doors with pen lights, leading to offices featuring unpainted timber fire surrounds. A turned stair with decorative cast iron ballusters ascends to a symmetrical, open first floor hall with dado panelling and two-centred arches, some supported on banded and clustered wooden columns. Remarkably, the interior decorative scheme to the courtroom remains largely intact and is believed to be original to the building's construction. Features include a long judges' bench with an arcaded, cusped-panelled front, dock and pew-style public seating, and a combed ceiling with delicate timber ventilator panels. The single-storey cell wing to the northwest has reinforced and modified four-panel doors leading to the cells.