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Summary

Description

James Pearson Alison, 1894. 3-storey and attic, roughly triangular-plan terminal block with semicircular bow-ended ground floor to Dutch-gabled principal (S) elevation, 2nd-floor semicircular-pedimented dormers breaking eaves to sides (E and W), and some Classical detailing. Tooled yellow sandstone ashlar with polished dressings. Deep plinth to corner bow; chamfered base course to corner bow and W elevation; 1st-floor band course; 1st-floor and 2nd-floor cill courses; eaves course. Predominantly rectangular windows, some stone-mullioned.

S (PRINCIPAL) ELEVATION: Symmetrical. Bowed ground floor with 4 large pilastered windows and recessed central door with fanlight, crowned by fascia. Tripartite shallow bow window at 1st floor crowned by parapet with pierced lettering (see NOTES). 2 rectangular windows at 2nd floor; lozenge-shaped window with Baroque scrolled margins at gable apex, in interlocking pilastered, ball-finialled architraves. Corner tourelles supporting garlanded stone urns flanking 2nd floor. Swan-neck pediment to gable.

W (NORTH BRIDGE STREET) ELEVATION: 4 evenly spaced bays. 3 stone steps to 2-leaf timber-panelled door with rectangular fanlight and narrow rectangular side lights in pilastered, swan-neck-pedimented architrave, to left of centre; bipartite stone-mullioned windows to left at ground and 1st floors; single rectangular lights elsewhere; 2 late-20th-century attic dormers. Moulded margins with raised cills, and entablatures at 1st floor.

E (BOURTREE PLACE) ELEVATION: Roughly 5 irregularly spaced bays. Stair windows to right of centre, bipartite at 1st floor and round-arched at 2nd floor. Tall, consoled wallhead stack to left. Moulded margins with raised cills.

Fixed plate glass to ground floor of S elevation; painted glass stair window in E elevation; predominantly plate glass in timber sash and case windows elsewhere. Grey slate roof with metal ridge; ashlar-coped skews; ashlar stacks with string course, cope, and predominantly octagonal decorative buff clay cans. Cast-iron rainwater goods.

INTERIOR: Tongue-and-groove timber panelling to premises in bowed corner. Stone open-well stair to offices and upper apartment, with decorative cast-iron grate at base, closed timber balustrade from ground to 1st floors and decorative cast-iron balustrade with polished timber handrail from 1st to 2nd floors. Some dado panelling; some decorative cornices; mostly half-glazed timber-panelled doors, with some etched glass.

Statement of Special Interest

An eclectically designed former hotel occupying a commanding position at the heart of Hawick at the head of High Street, on a tapering corner site between North Bridge Street and Bourtree Place, which makes a strong contribution to the streetscape and was designed by Hawick's most prominent architect, James Pearson Alison (1862-1932).

Alison commenced practice in Hawick in 1888 and remained there until his death. He was responsible for a large number of buildings of widely varying types and styles, including a considerable proportion of the town's listed structures. This relatively early work demonstrates his ability to design in a range of idioms - in this case classical and Dutch - which he mingled successfully in a coherent design. Alison played a particularly significant role in the development of North Bridge Street throughout the 1890s. His name is inscribed in one of the dormerheads on the west elevation of No 1.

The building was built as the Central Hotel for George Luff, who had come to Hawick from his native Brighton in the late 1870s. It replaced an earlier building with a similar footprint, shown on the 1857 Ordnance Survey Town Plan. The dormerheads on the North Bridge Street elevation are inscribed with the names of the architect, client, builder (Bell & Turnbull), and the Provost of the time (W S Barrie). It closed as a hotel in spring 1919, and was bought for £2,300 by the Prudential Insurance Company, who adapted the Celtic lettering on the parapet of the 1st-floor bay window from the original 'THE CENTRAL' to the 'PRUDENTIAL' that exists today. It reopened on 5 February 1920 and was occupied by the Prudential until the mid-1950s. The bowed ground-floor corner is now Findlay's Restaurant. The rest of the building, reached via the North Bridge Street door, contains offices at ground and 1st floors. The upper floors are an apartment, formerly the Prudential manager's residence, enclosed at the 2nd-floor landing behind a half-glazed, timber-boarded screen that was probably added in the 1930s.

The original windows remain at ground and 1st floors, but the upper windows were replaced with uPVC in the late 1980s.

References

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