172-174 High Street, Ayr

The building at 176 High Street, Ayr, comprises a 4-stage Tudor-Gothic tower designed by Thomas Hamilton between 1830 and 1832, with later 19th-century shopfronts by John Mercer in 1886. It incorporates a 2-storey, 4-bay Tudor-Jacobean extension fronting High Street and a 2-storey, 5-bay extension facing Mill Street. The building is constructed of polished ashlar.

The south-west elevation, which serves as the main entrance to the tower, features four-centred open battered arches on the south-east, north-west, and south-west sides. A two-leaf timber door is located on the north-east side at the first stage. Above a dividing band course, pilaster buttresses support deep-splayed 4-light windows at the second stage. The third stage has deep-splayed 3-light tracery windows with a label mould on the south-east, north-west, and north-east sides, and a canopied niche containing a statue of Wallace on the south-west side. A corbelled band course runs across at this level. Clock panels with stepped label moulds are situated on all elevations at the third stage, with octagonal angle buttresses rising to crenellated finials. The octagonal fourth stage rises from a corbelled, crenellated parapet, featuring long, louvred belfry openings, quatrefoil panels, and a crenellated parapet.

The south-west elevation, which includes the buildings at numbers 172 and 174, has modern shopfronts at ground level with entrances on the outer left and right. To the left is a modern glazed door and fanlight, and a shop window to the right. The right side has a two-leaf glazed modern door, with a shop window to the left. Flanking pilasters support a gabled bay to the outer left, rising to octagonal crenellated pinnacles, with a canted 3-light window and pointed merlon crenellation above it. An Ayr Burgh Arms roundel is positioned on the gablehead. Three single windows are set to the right of the gable, separated by a cornice and blocking course. The tower is located on the outer right.

The south-east (Mill Street) elevation is five bays wide, with the tower on the outer left. A canted bay to the left features a deep-splayed pointed arch 3-light window at ground level, above which is a string course and a Y-tracery leaded window at the first floor. Single pointed arch windows flank the canted bays. A corbelled cornice sits above, with a quatrefoil roundel in the gablet and octagonal crenellated pinnacles. To the right, four bays contain a modern shopfront at ground level (with three sets of doors on the outer right bay), while the first floor has four Y-tracery windows which rise to form gablets, flanked by octagonal crenellated pinnacles on the outer left and right.

The High Street addition has plate glass timber sash and case windows, while those on the Mill Street elevation are plate glass with Y-tracery. The second stage of the tower features leaded tracery windows. The roof is covered in grey slate.

The interior of the tower features a timber handrail to the staircase, a castellated newel post, a decorative ceiling to the principal meeting room, rubble walls, and clock machinery.