1-3 Old Town, Peebles

1-3 Old Town in Peebles is an 1888 three-storey L-plan office building that features a unified shop and café at ground level, situated on a broad gusset site. The exterior is constructed from snecked and stugged cream sandstone ashlar with polished dressings. The ground floor has a plain modern harled shopfront with large square shop windows, and the angled corners are corbelled out to create a curve above the ground level. The upper floors have raised margins with bracketed cills, a cill course at the second floor, and windows that break the eaves, topped with gabled dormerheads featuring ball finials. The building has a regular pattern of windows.

On the east elevation, there are three bays flanked by corner bays. Above the five-bay shopfront, which has a central door and a blank left bay, the broad central bay features bipartite windows with moulded architraves. The first floor has a bolection frieze and a cornice that breaks over a date shield inscribed with 1888. The second floor has round-headed windows flanked by pilasters that support ball finials and a curvilinear gable with a broad apex stack. The left corner bay includes a shouldered doorcase with a two-leaf door and a rectangular plate glass fanlight at ground level, while the right corner bay has a shop window.

The north elevation, facing Old Town, has three three-storey bays to the left, with a shop door on the right at ground level. The first floor features bipartite windows in the two left bays. To the right, there are three two-storey bays, with a tripartite shop window on the left and double doors on the right leading to the first floor, which has a bipartite central window.

The south elevation presents three irregular bays and has a band course above the ground level, which has been removed on other elevations. The right bay contains a partly blocked shouldered former shop window or door at ground level, with windows above it, and a consoled wallhead stack to the left. The left bays display a variety of windows, with those on the second floor positioned hard under the eaves. There is also a later two-storey, three-bay flat-roofed dry-dash store to the left.

The building features timber sash and case windows, with four-pane designs and plate glass in the bipartite windows. The roof is a combination of piend and platform styles, covered with grey slates, and there are corniced ashlar stacks along with moulded cast-iron gutters. The interior has been completely refitted at ground level, while the upper floors remain unseen since 1994.