The Court Residence, (Former Linlithgow Sheriff Court), including boundary walls and gatepiers, 1 Court Square, High Street, Linlithgow

The Court Residence, formerly Linlithgow Sheriff Court, was designed by Thomas Brown and James Maitland Wardrop and built between 1862 and 1863, with later additions made in 1875 by Wardrop and Charles Reid. Further alterations occurred in the 1990s and in 2014 when the building was converted into a hotel.

The building is a two-storey, six-bay, L-plan structure in the Tudor Revival style. The main facade facing the High Street is asymmetrical, with a prominent, double-gabled entrance bay on the right. It is constructed of squared, stugged, and snecked sandstone rubble, with polished stone surrounds. Architectural details include a moulded base, string courses that extend as hoodmoulds over the ground floor openings, and an eaves parapet. The windows are single, bipartite, and tripartite, featuring ashlar mullions and transoms with chamfered reveals. Doorways have stepped hoodmoulds, and contrasting quoins and window margins are present. The building’s chimneys are corbelled and polygonal, and there are decorative gable finials. The rear elevation has five large, pointed windows, which originally served the courtroom. An additional two-storey section was added in 1875 to the east side, along with a single-storey cell block to the rear.

The windows are timber sash and case windows with multiple panes. The roof is covered in grey slate with ashlar gablet-coped skews and beaked skewputts. Rainwater pipes dated 1863 are visible, with a carved thistle motif on those along the north side of the building.

The interior retains a late 19th-century decorative scheme in the entrance stairway and the former courtroom. The courtroom’s ceiling is timber-boarded with decorative quatrefoil trusses supported by carved columnettes on stone corbels. While many original interior fittings were removed during the 2014 renovations, the shouldered architraves around doorways still remain. The entrance hall is distinguished by a large, half-turn staircase with decorative cast iron balusters. Pointed arches are found on some of the doorways, and original features such as six-panel doors, window shutters, and decorative cornicing have been preserved. A former record room at the southwest corner of the ground floor features a triple vaulted ceiling.

The front boundary is defined by ashlar-coped retaining walls, and a rubble wall extends to the southwest of the building. Decorative octagonal pyramidal gatepiers on the west side mark the entrance to a rear courtyard.