Municipal Buildings, Dunbeth Road, Coatbridge

The Municipal Buildings, located on Dunbeth Road in Coatbridge, date from 1894 and were designed by McGregor Mitchell. The building occupies a corner site at the junction of Dunbeth Road and Laird Street, though the original corner block at Laird Street was demolished by fire in 1967 and rebuilt between 1991 and 1992. The rebuilt section at Dunbeth Road replicates the original design, while the Laird Street section features a modern design.

The building is a two- and three-storey structure with a basement, constructed on a sloping site in the Renaissance style and forming a U-plan. It is built of red sandstone ashlar with a slate roof. Architectural details include a base course, moulded cill courses, a string course at the first floor, a wallhead frieze, a corniced and part-balustraded parapet, and shaped gables with ball finials and pediments on the Dunbeth Road elevation. The windows are cross-windows with pilastered margins and corniced lintels; some frames have been replaced with uPVC, featuring single panes at the bottom and multi-pane top-hoppers. Bipartite windows are prominent on the Muiryhall Street elevation with architraving to the ground floor and cornices above. Corniced ridge stacks are present, along with a corniced and voluted parapet stack on the Muiryhall Street side.

The Dunbeth Road elevation comprises six original bays, divided into two groups of three symmetrical bays. Three bays are slightly advanced to the right, with a full-height canted window topped with a shaped gable at the centre. Various basement windows and a panelled door with a pilastered doorcase and voluted pediment are found on the ground floor to the left, with a bipartite window to the right. A canted first-floor window is flanked by statues set within ogival-headed niches and bipartite windows. Three bays are slightly recessed to the left, featuring a full-height three-light projecting window with a shaped gable flanked by single- and bipartite ground-floor windows, and bipartites at the first floor. A further three bays, advanced to the left (added 1991-92) mimic the appearance of those to the right, but without a door or statues. A three-bay return is also present to the left. The Muiryhall Street elevation features a pedimented doorway and various windows on the basement level. Five windows are present on the principal and first floors, with an ogival-headed niche (without a statue) in the second bay from the left. A recessed three-storey, four-bay section is located to the right, with a tall, ogival-capped octagonal ridge ventilator. A slightly advanced three-storey, two-bay section is situated at the far right. The modern, four-storey, eight-bay building is situated along the Laird Street elevation.

Low boundary walls with four pedimented ashlar gatepiers and cast-iron railings run along Dunbeth Road. At Laird Street and Muiryhall Road, two substantial ball-finialled, ogival-capped ashlar gatepiers support decorative wrought-iron gates.

The interior of the building has not been inspected.