Old Post Office, 108 High Street, Kinross, Kinross, Perth and Kinross

Entry Name: Old Post Office, 108 High Street, Kinross

Listing Name: 108 High Street (Old Post Office)

Listing Date: 5 October 1971

Category: B

Source: Historic Scotland

Source ID: 381050

Historic Scotland Designation Reference: LB36298

Building Class: Cultural

ID on this website: 200381050

Location: Kinross

County: Perth and Kinross

Town: Kinross

Electoral Ward: Kinross-shire

Traditional County: Kinross-shire

Tagged with: Post office

Description

Dated 1841. 2-storey, 3-bay Clasically-detailed former office with corniced and pedimented doorpiece flanked by canted bays, and splayed angle to rear; lower 2-storey, single bay, crowstep-gabled former Post Office (probably of same date) projecting at NW with Clock Tower in re-entrant angle (see separate listing). Grey sandstone ashlar with snecked rubble, some squared, to sides and rear; ashlar dressings, some droved; Post Office red sandstone with contrasting grey ashlar dressings. Banded base course and moulded corniced eaves course. Stone mullions to tri-partite canted bays at ground floor.

PRINCIPAL (E) ELEVATION: symmetrical elevation with panelled timber door to centre bay below incised date panel; flanked by canted tri-partite windows to outer bays. Regular rectangular fenestration close to eaves at 1st floor, with blind centre window.

REAR (N) ELEVATION: projecting Post Office bay with single rectangular window to each floor in crowstepped gable to N and on return to S.

12-pane glazing pattern in timber sash and case windows. Grey slates. Coped ashlar stacks and ashlar-coped skews. Cast iron rainwater goods with decorative rainwater hopper.

INTERIOR: some areas with plain cornices, timber dadoes and panelled reveals retained. Dog-leg staircase with decorative cast iron balusters and timber handrail.

Statement of Interest

The former Post Office is part of a B group with the Carnegie Library, former Town Hall and Clock tower (see separate listings) which represent the former civic centre of Kinross Burgh This is a prominently set classical office building, which makes a significant contribution, with fine stonework and a classical design, to the heart of Kinross Burgh, and forms a central part of a terrace of civic buildings including the adjacent former Town Hall and Carnegie Library (see separate listings). The building, which includes the former post office, is built on the site of the 1742-3 Parish Church which was demolished in 1832, the piended north elevation incorporates the separately listed 1751 Clock Tower (steeple of former Parish Church) and the crowstepped former Post Office.

The building links internally with the former Town Hall and compliments the small group of buildings at the civic heart of the town, which also includes the Carnegie Public Library and Fountain (se separate listings).

The Statistical Account of 1834-45 notes that Kinross 'is a post-town, where letters from the south arrive every evening about 9, and every morning at the same hour; and from the north at 2 A.M. and 4 P.M... For the gratuitous delivery of letters, for a branch of the British Linen Bank, and for other conveniences and advantages, Kinross stands indebted to the active and kind interference of Sir James Montgomery'.

List description revised 2011.

External Links

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