Martin Robertson (Architectural Heritage Society)
Martin Robertson is an Architectural Historian who worked for many years in the government historic buildings service as a Principal Inspector and then for English Heritage before becoming a consultant doing much work for Cadw and for local authorities and private owners in the West Country from his home in Bath. He has lived in Scotland since 2006 with more consultancy work as well as volunteer work for Dumfries & Galloway Archives Centre, and for the Architectural Heritage Society of Scotland of which he was Chairman until last October. He has had extensive practical experience of all British building types and their relative rarity and importance. He lives in a Category A Bastle House in New Abbey.
Martin says -
"I shall be talking about certain buildings in Dumfries town centre which you will all know well, possibly over many years and through several incarnations, but I must hope that I shall be able to give them some further interest that you did not know they had. All historic buildings are worth more than a casual glance and the more we get to know about them the more important a role they will play in our lives. That is a key reason for conservation and why we attempt to protect the past for the benefit of the future. Dumfries has suffered from too little investment in the repair of important buildings in its historic centre in recent years. There have been examples of major repair schemes to key buildings such as the Midsteeple and the Trades Hall but there remain too many buildings of quality and character which have suffered from neglect and lack of maintenance. It is some of these that I shall be bringing to your attention."
Martin Robertson – Historic Dumfries Architecture
Thursday 16 February 2023
Architectural historian Martin Robertson, himself a resident of a Category A Bastle House in New Abbey, entertained members with a detailed description of six buildings of architectural significance in Dumfries town centre. He began by explaining that these familiar buildings are what gives the town its character but they have had little investment in recent years. He believed they should be protected for the future and hoped that the Conservation Area Regeneration Scheme, working with bodies such as the Midsteeple Project and The Stove Network, will regenerate them, bringing new confidence to the town and giving an uplift to the whole region.
The six buildings were all located on English Street and the High Street and were of sufficient architectural interest to be listed by Historic Environment Scotland. Martin’s talk expanded on the physical and technical details provided by the listings, filling in gaps and bringing the buildings to life.
Beginning with 8 English Street, the Union Bank, Martin described how it would have had stores in the basement, business rooms at ground level and above this would have been family accommodation. This might have been for the manager and his housekeeper in the fashion of Charles Dickens’ “Hard Times”, where of Mrs Sparsit watched the comings and goings on the street below and kept house for Mr Bounderby at Bounderby’s Bank.
Crossing the street to 11 – 17 English Street, Martin explained that this building was constructed as two shops. Like many others it occupied a burgess plot, ensuring that the structures along the street all shared a common frontage. Burgesses were men who were permitted to trade in the town.
In contrast, 130 – 132 High Street, the Tolbooth and Rainbow Stairs, was an incursion onto the common land in the vicinity of the town centre. Street numbers can be confusing as they can change over time, an issue Martin illustrated with a story from early in his career. Karl Marx and his family were recorded as having lived at 9 Grafton Terrace, Camden Town, London. At some stage additional houses were built, the street was renumbered from the other end, and the Marx family actually lived at what is today number 46 – with an appropriate red door.
Martin moved onto 107 – 109 High Street next, describing how it was built on the site of The Pillars, a medieval structure. The building is also on the corner of Bank Street, and it may have accommodated Dumfries’ most famous architect, Walter Newall. The upper floors of the current building remain unchanged.
113 – 115 High Street had one shop at the front and another at the rear. By 1925 the frontage of 115 was altered by Boots the Chemist and Dumfries and Galloway Standard occupied the rear. It was also where Robert Dinwiddie, Stationer, founded the Scottish Norwegian Society.
130 – 132 High Street was built as an important, new type of shop for Dumfries, reflecting the town’s growing importance as a retail centre in the mid-19th century. It had an extensive retail showroom for drapery and home furnishings. Staff may have been accommodated in the attic and Martin conjured an image of the orphaned H G Wells’ character Kipps, who was apprenticed to a draper for seven years. He shared a freezing attic bedroom with eight others and spent his long days rolling goods that had been delivered folded and folding goods that had arrived rolled.
Martin’s talk revealed that there is far more to Dumfries town centre than retail frontages. Look upwards and the buildings have a much more interesting story to tell.