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Summary

Description

J and J Hall, dated 1888. 3-storey and attic; 5 bays to Roxburgh street and 7 bays to High Street; L-plan former department store, now in commercial and residential use; French Renaissance detailing, prominent 4-stage polygonal corner tower with bell-cast roof, corbelled over ground floor. 4-stage square tower to south end of High Street elevation with prominent pedimented Ionic doorpiece and 2nd floor canted oriel window. Squared buff sandstone with red sandstone ashlar dressings. Ground floor shopfronts. First floor band course, eaves band course, blocking course to corner bays. Segmental-headed bipartite and tripartite windows with moulded surrounds. Cast iron fronted circular lucerne dormers and segmental-headed dormers. Bays to High Street and some to Roxburgh Street divided by full-height pilasters.

NORTHEAST (HIGH STREET) ELEVATION: regular vertical divisions with irregularly disposed bipartite, tripartite and single windows.

NORTHWEST (ROXBURGH STREET) ELEVATION: as NE elevation, but symmetrical, with slightly advanced end bays. Central pend with wrought iron gates.

Plate glass in timber sash and case windows. Grey slate roofs Prominent wide wallhead stack to south.

INTERIOR: access to the interior was not gained during the course of the survey (2005). However, it is understood that the main stair has decorative tiling.

Statement of Special Interest

The Co-op store on the corner of High Street and Roxburgh Street is a prominent Galashiels landmark, situated on a principal route through the town and dominating both streets. It owes its prominence particularly to both well-detailed tall towers with good quality decorative stonework, and through other details, such as the mansard roofs. The building has also largely retained the pattern of ground floor shopfronts, with much of the fascia surviving behind later additions. The building, which was the work of the town's most successful architects, emphasises the wealth and optimism in the town through the later 19th century, owing to the success of the textile trade.

The Co-op was founded in Galashiels in 1839, with a premises in Overhaugh Street from 1842, replaced by the present store.

Early photographs show that the south tower also had an octagonal cupola, which has since been removed. As built, the Co-operative department store appears to have been rectangular-plan around a central light well. As a result, the modern refurbishment involved the removal of much of the rear of the building and its present re-facing in brick.

The building is the work of J and J Hall, the foremost and most prolific of Galashiels architectural practices, whose work defines much of the late 19th and early 20th century character of Galashiels town centre. The firm, which had premises at Ladhope Vale, had its origins in the building firm of Robert Hall and company in the mid-19th century. John Hall Junior became an architect in the 1880s, when the firm became known as J and J Hall. Other notable buildings by the firm in Galashiels include the Technical College (1908) and the Douglas Hotel on Channel Street (c1890).

Category changed from B to C(S) 2006.

References

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