Boundary Wall And Railings., Volunteer Hall, St John Street

This building is a two-storey, five-bay former drill hall, dated 1874 and designed by William Stirling, with later additions. It comprises an upper hall and administrative block to the front, a large main hall to the rear, and a single-storey extension built in the 20th century to fill the angle to the east. The building is constructed of squared, rock-faced sandstone with smooth, chamfered arrises to the window margins, a projecting base course, a moulded cill course at the first floor, and a stone eaves course with brackets.

The south (entrance) elevation features a central crow-stepped gable with a wide stone archway. The first floor has a bipartite window with a rounded, bracketed hoodmould over a datestone, and an arrow slit opening at the gablehead. The main hall to the rear is built of rubble stonework with a plain, banded eaves course, and features staged gable buttresses between round arched windows, ball finials on the gable apexes, a small flat-roofed porch, and basement boiler house steps to the east. A small, rendered extension from the 20th century is located to the rear, incorporating steps. A low coped wall with cast iron railings runs along the west side.

The windows are predominantly timber sash and case windows with four panes of glazing. Timber panelled doors are also present. The roof is covered in grey slates and has short, corniced end chimney stacks with slender, octagonal clay cans and boxed ridge ventilators. The gables are crowstepped, with decorative skewputts to the main hall. Rainwater goods are cast iron, with downpipes recessed behind the string course.

The interior, viewed in 2006, retains a good, later 19th century civic decorative scheme, including plaster lion head corbels in the entrance hall, egg and dart cornices to the ground floor room, and a floral cornice to the first floor hall. A dog-leg staircase has decorative cast iron balusters leading to a timber balcony overlooking the main hall. The main hall roof structure is cast iron with tension rods. Former keeper's rooms and an armoury, originally on the ground floor, have been converted into offices and public toilets.