15, 17, 19 Main Street, Beith

A prominent corner property dating to around 1800, with an early 19th-century return wing fronting Reform Street. The main building comprises a 2-storey, 5-bay façade to Main Street with later shopfronts at ground level; the central first-floor window is blocked. The gable end facing Reform Street contains 4 windows, one of which is blocked. Modern render covers the principal elevation and gable, replacing the original lime harl, with raised and painted window and angle margins. A moulded eaves course runs along the top. The return wing is 2-storey with a pend at ground level, featuring a window to both floors. It is constructed of cherry-caulked whinstone with raised ashlar margins and droved tabs. A carved armorial lintel sits above the first-floor window of the rear elevation, probably reset from elsewhere.

Windows throughout are timber sash and case, originally 12-pane with astragals now knocked out; the gable contains a lying-pane window with 8 panes. The roof is covered in grey slates with straight skews and end chimney stacks.

The interior of the Main Street first floor and attic was derelict as of 2003. A stone scale and platt stair with cast-iron balustrade and timber handrail survives, along with remains of moulded chimneypieces. Two bricked-up 4-centred arches, possibly former buffet niches, are evident. The return wing contains a stone-stepped elevated ground-floor room (above the pend) with reeded cornice, reeded architraves, and panelled shutters with raised fields in panelled embrasures. Panelled doors with 6 raised fields, a deep architraved bed recess, and a chimneypiece are present; a chair rail has since been removed. The mouldings and timber panelling are of good quality and the reeding indicates Regency taste. The bed recess was a practical arrangement, keeping the occupant free from draughts and allowing the chimneypiece to provide warmth through the night.

To the rear, former bakery buildings form a courtyard with 2-6 Reform Street (separately listed). A range at right angles to the rear of Main Street is 2-storey rubble-built from sandstone, whinstone, and field boulders with evidence of original lime harl; its height was probably raised by one storey. It has irregularly-spaced openings to the courtyard with raised, droved sandstone margins and blocked openings, later covered by a corrugated metal roof with a brick lean-to added to the courtyard side. A parallel range fronting Main Street is 2-storey with 3 bays; an altered carriage arch at the centre (now converted to a door and window) served to transfer flour to and from the store above to carts via a hatch in the first floor. Three regularly-spaced windows to the first floor retain original timber sash and case 12-pane windows. This range is constructed of whinstone with droved sandstone margins and covered in grey slate roof with slates in diminishing courses. The bakery buildings functioned as such until relatively recently, with original ovens remaining, now enclosed within the walls.

The building occupies a prominent corner site at the entrance to Main Street and now terminates Main Street to the south-west, forming the return. The buildings that once formed the opposite side of Reform Street have long since been demolished.

As of 2003, the buildings, including 2-6 Reform Street, had been purchased by St Vincent Crescent Preservation Trust, which planned careful restoration and conversion into housing. The site is marked on the first edition Ordnance Survey map of 1858.