Mckechnie Institute And Reading Rooms, Dalrymple Street, Girvan

The Mckechnie Institute and Reading Rooms, located on Dalrymple Street in Girvan, was designed by James McKissack of McKissack and Rowan and built between 1887 and 1888. This Scottish Baronial style building features a library and reading rooms, constructed from stugged red sandstone with polished dressings.

It is a two-storey structure arranged in an L-shape, highlighted by a tall three-storey octagonal tower situated in the re-entrant angle. The right bay contains a deeply recessed round-arched door, accompanied by two similarly shaped windows with apron panels to the left. Above, there is a boldly corbelled balustrade adorned with ball finials.

On the first floor, there are two transomed windows with broken pedimented heads, set within a pair of crowstepped gables that feature decorative quoins. The three sides of the angle tower include mullion and transom windows at ground level and pedimented windows on the first floor of each face. The tower rises to an octagonal section above the first floor, with each window showcasing neo-Jacobean scrolled heads and a balustrade with ball finials.

The crowstepped gable end of the main hall features a large simplified Venetian window on the first floor facing Ailsa Street West. Beyond this, there is a lower crowstepped gabled wing that has three windows extending through the eaves to create wall-head dormers, with the outer dormers piended and the inner ones crowstepped. The building is topped with a slate roof.