71 High Street, Hawick

This is a substantial former department store, dated 1885 and designed by Michael Brodie, with later additions. It occupies a prominent position on High Street, Hawick, and comprises two distinct blocks, numbers 65-67 and 63. The building is three storeys and has an attic.

The principal block at numbers 65-67 is a 7-bay structure with a French Renaissance style. It is constructed of tooled, squared, coursed yellow sandstone with polished ashlar dressings to the upper floors. The left block, number 63, has polished yellow sandstone ashlar to its upper floors. Both blocks have late-20th-century shopfronts, and the rear elevation is rendered.

The principal block features a shared central lobby with the shops to either side at ground floor level. A central, canted oriel window is positioned on the second floor, with decorative pendants and topped by an urn-finialled parapet. A central mansard roof covers the attic space. Architectural details include a fascia cornice, a first-floor cill course, a modillioned eaves cornice, and a blocking course connecting the dormers. The building has channelled quoin strips. The windows are round-arched at both the first floor and attic levels, and to the second-floor oriel; segmental-arched windows are found elsewhere on the second floor. Corniced window margins are present, with carved keystones above each window. Ionic pilasters flank the first-floor windows and the oriel on the second floor. Other second-floor windows have stop-chamfered, roll-moulded margins and moulded, bracketed cills. Acroteria (small decorative ornaments) are present at the second floor and attic levels. The shopfronts feature plate glass, while the second-floor oriel has plate glass in timber sash and case windows. Elsewhere, the sash and case windows have four panes of glass. The roof is covered in grey slate, with fish scale slates on the central mansard, and metal ridges.

The block at number 63 has a broad pend (covered passageway) on its left side and a late-20th-century shopfront on its right. The upper bays are grouped as 1-3 above the pend and shopfront respectively. The building has a fascia cornice and a modillioned eaves cornice. The windows are deeply recessed. Single lights are found in the left bay, while the bays to the right have stone-mullioned, two-part windows with pilaster strips between them. Projecting margins and chamfered cills are present throughout. Set-back, flat-roofed dormers with two-part windows are also incorporated. The shopfront has plate glass, while the windows above are multi-pane, metal-framed, with fixed lower and tilting upper sections; casement windows are present in the attic. The roof is grey slate and features corniced, rendered gablehead stacks topped with circular buff clay cans.