1/13/2024 0 Comments Should umbra clock tower be legal![]() ![]() The interior was seen in 2007 and has a 1970s decorative scheme, including a cantilvered steel staircase and a double-height, timber panelled council chamber. The majority of the windows are narrow vertical openings. There are pilotis to the north, forming an open space under the first storey and there is curved advanced first floor window at the west elevation. It is a 4-storey, flat-roofed building, dated 1975, with paired vertical full height columns and contrasting grey walls. The City Chambers to Broad Street is linked to the Town House by a raised corridor. There is a remnant of round-arched pilastered arcading at the west wall and a timber bell frame. The Tolbooth has stone-flagged floors, a narrow spiral stair, several small internal rooms, some of which are vaulted with original heavy timber iron bound yetts. The courts are largely modernised, but one court has timber pews, gallery and bench. There is decorative plaster cornicing and 4 and 6 panel timber doors throughout and several large classical, granite chimneypieces. There are other timber panelled rooms with coffered ceilings, one of which has heraldic shields. The main reception hall has timber panelling, a fine decorative timber hammerbeam roof and a minstrels' gallery. The municipal offices and courts have a central granite imperial stair with a galleried landing and there is a further tall open-well spiral staircase with a decorative cast iron baluster and timber rail. ![]() The interior was seen in 2007 and has an impressive decorative scheme with detailing dating from the 17th and mid 19th century. The roof has grey slates and there are tall, narrow, coped ridge chimney stacks. The windows on the street elevations are predominantly plate glass in timber sash and case frames. It is internally connected to the 19th century Town House to the west. Its polygonal steeple has blind round-arched openings and a decorative lead spire. The 17th century Tolbooth is a rubble, square-plan castellated tower with corbelled balustraded parapet and clock faces on 3 sides and which is partly enmeshed in later buildings. Above the entrance is a corbelled balcony and the 5th stage of the tower has with louvred openings with clock faces set in the gables above. The tower to the far left has a round-arched doorway with steps leading to a timber and glass revolving entrance door with semi-circular fanlight above. A vertical metal sundial is set high on the wall to the far right and carries the motto UT UMBRA SIC FUGIT VITA (Life flies like a shadow). An advanced bay to the far right has the Tolbooth behind it. The central 5 bays have double-height segmental-arched openings at the second and third floors with bipartite windows and multifoil openings above. The Castle Street elevation has a central 6-panel 2-leaf timber entrance door. There are small gabled roof dormers with finials. ![]() The ground floor has segmental-arched arcading and there are smaller, round-arched openings at the first floor. ![]() It has a base course, string courses, cill courses and a parapet. The building is situated on a prominent corner site in the city centre and is of grey granite ashlar. The 1868-74 Town House is a 4-storey and attic, 16-bay, Scots Baronial turreted municipal building with an advanced 6-stage corbelled and bartizaned square-plan, 5-stage clock tower with a spire to the west. It incorporates the remaining part of the Tolbooth of 1615-29 by Thomas Watson of Old Rayne at the east, and includes the City Chambers to Broad Street, added in 1975 by the Aberdeen City Architect's Department, with Ian Ferguson and Tom Campbell Watson as its chief architects. Aberdeen Town House was built in 1868-74 by John Dick Peddie and Charles George Hood Kinnear. ![]()
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