Methodist Central Hall, 3-9 Gauze Street, Paisley

The Methodist Central Hall, located at 3-9 Gauze Street in Paisley, was designed by Watson and Salmond Architects in 1908 and showcases a Free Renaissance style. The building features halls and shops with eight bays facing Gauze Street and eleven bays along Smithhills. The Gauze Street elevation is three stories high with seven symmetrical bays and an additional bay on the right. The central entrance has an architrave and is flanked by panelled pilasters with consoles and urns. There are pairs of shops with original fronts on either side, and an architraved door on the right. A cornice above the ground floor is broken over the central door.

The upper floors are adorned with channelled pilasters at the corners and panelled pilasters flanking the tripartite windows on each floor. The lower window on the first floor is transomed, with two canted windows flanked by architraved and keystoned sash windows. The second-floor windows are detailed like those on the first, divided by blind aedicules, and feature consoled balustraded balconies on the central bays. The building is topped with a mutuled eaves cornice and a balustraded parapet, which is interrupted by a scrolled pediment over the center. The symmetrical part has a piended slate roof with pairs of small dormers flanking a larger one, which has a semi-circular pediment and corniced stacks.

On the Smithhills Street elevation, the right side has three bays that are similarly detailed to those on Gauze Street, with a shop on the ground floor and two small windows flanking a larger window on each upper floor. To the left, there are seven symmetrical bays, with one-third of the end set back. The three-storey and mezzanine bays flanking the five-bay center have doors set in cavetto moulded round arches. Above these, there are oculi and oriels with small sash windows. The ground floor center section features three round-arched windows flanked by small sash windows, with a cornice above. The outer bays of the center have aediculed windows on the first floor and architraved sash windows with swagged aprons on the second. The inner three bays of the upper floors are set back and separated by giant pilasters. The building also has tripartite windows, a mutuled eaves cornice, and a parapet that is partly balustraded and partly solid, all topped with a slate roof.