Kingsknowes Hotel, Kingsknowe Drive, Galashiels

This is a large, asymmetrical Scots Baronial mansion, originally designed by William Hay between 1868 and 1869 and later converted into a hotel. It is a three-storey building with a square plan and four bays, with the upper eaves breaking the roofline. The building exhibits a mix of architectural influences, including French, Gothic, and early Renaissance detailing. A single-storey range forms a courtyard to the north, and a particularly elaborate domed conservatory is situated to the southwest.

The entrance is marked by a narrow, crowstepped gabled bay featuring a semi-circular arched doorway with a stained glass fanlight. Flanking the doorway are pink granite columns with floral capitals, supporting a balconied parapet above. A polygonal, oversailing turret rises from the re-entrant angle. A prominent, circular, conical-roofed tower is located at the eastern corner, decorated with arched stone bracketed pediments breaking the eaves. Distinctive round-headed, piended dormers and a circular domed brattishing corona are also present. Projecting canted windows feature columnar mullions, while some first-floor windows are balconied, and steeply pitched, round-arched attic dormers have skewputts. The walls are constructed from stugged, snecked red sandstone rubble, with smooth dressings featuring chamfered openings. A base course, moulded string courses, and a banded eaves course are further details.

The original windows are timber sash and case with plate glass. The roofs are slate, with fishtail slates to the towers and turrets. Prominent ashlar stacks with shouldered and corniced details are visible, along with square section cast-iron gutters supported by decorative square hoppers.

The interior is richly decorated, including a three-bay Corinthian arcaded screen in the hall leading to the upper landing, a sweeping open staircase with decorative cast-iron balusters, and a large, tripartite stained glass window. Deep, ornate plaster cornicing and ceiling roses are present, along with a timber and stained glass entrance screen. Early French Gothic polychrome marble fireplaces, featuring dwarf columns and elaborate foliate caps, appear throughout. A bar is notable for its Tudor timber panelling and ornate combed plaster ceiling.

The conservatory, believed to be contemporary with the main house and built by MacKenzie & Moncur, features an octagonal, cast-iron domed roof with a finialled clerestoried circular lantern and a pitched roof linking corridor to the main building, all sitting on a red sandstone base plinth. It has small-paned convex glass and foliate arabesque-patterned cast-iron pilaster ventilators at the corners.