88-98 High Street, Ayr

John Mercer, 1883. 4-storey and attic, 9-bay (grouped 4-5), Renaissance block with modern shopfront at ground. Polished red ashlar. 4-bay group: banded rustication; dentilled cornice to shopfront; cill courses to upper floors. 5-bay group: cornice to shopfront (lower than 4-bay group); cill course to 3rd floor; balustraded parapet. Continuous mutuled cornice to both groups. Architraved windows.

W (ENTRANCE) ELEVATION, 4-BAY GROUP: modern shopfront at ground to 4-bay group; closely spaced regular fenestration to upper floors; lugged windows with cornices at 1st floor; panelled aprons to 2nd and 3rd floors; decorative bracketed iron balcony to centre pair of windows at 3rd floor.

W (ENTRANCE) ELEVATION, 5-BAY GROUP: 3-pairs of glazed modern 2-leaf doors at centre; flanking shop windows; consoled and pedimented windows at 1st floor to 3 central bays; small brackets to cills at 2nd floor windows; advanced rectangular panels to 2nd floor windows. Banded rustication to pilasters flanking outer bays; consoled cornices to 1st floor windows; arched recesses to 2nd floor Venetian windows with sculpted spandrels and bowed balustraded balconies; tripartite windows at 3rd floor; scrolled pedimented dormers aligned above at attic; flanking stacks.

Predominantly plate glass timber sash and case windows (4-pane to 1st and 2nd floors of 4-bays to left). Grey slate roof; French pavilion roof to 2 dormers; 4 square-plan banded stacks with segmental heads rising from pilasters to 5-bay group; broad corniced stacks to outer left and right and centre;

INTERIOR: not seen 1998.