Mckechnie Institute And Reading Rooms, Dalrymple Street, Girvan

James McKissack of McKissack and Rowan, 1887-8. Scottish

Baronial library, reading rooms etc. Stugged red sandstone,

with polished dressings. 2-storey, L-plan with tall 3-storey

octagonal tower in re-entrant angle. Deeply recessed

round-arched door in right bay with 2 similarly headed

windows with apron panels to left. Boldly corbelled

balustrade above with ball finials. 2 transomed windows with

broken pedimented heads in 1st floor, set in a pair of

crowstepped gables with decorative quoins. 3 sides of angle

tower have mullion and transom windows at ground, pedimented

windows at 1st floor on each face. Tower rises to octagon

above 1st floor, each window with neo-Jacobean scrolled head.

Balustrade with ball finials. Crowstepped gable end of main

hall with large simplified Venetian window in 1st floor

fronting Ailsa Street West. Lower crowstepped gabled wing

beyond with 3 windows rising through eaves to form wall-head

dormers, the outer piended, the inner crowstepped. Slate

roof.