Ask in Haddington today where, in the town, one of the Kings of Scotland was born and you may get a lot of blanck faces. But once Court Street was King Street and it was here.
County Buildings.
In 1833 when the foundations of the present County Building were dug, the remains of the Palace of Haddington were discovered. It was here that, King William II [ William the Lion ] would spend some time and it was here that, on 24th August 1198, his son Alexander was born. Alexander was the only son of William & Ermengarde of Beaumont. He spent some time in England and was knighted by John of England at Clerkenwell Priory in 1213. Alexander succeeded to the kingdom on the death of his father on 4th December 1214.
Designed by William Burn, one of Scotland’s most eminent architects, Haddington County Buildings was built as County Buildings with a Burgh Court house that dates to the year of the 1833 Police Burgh Act of Scotland. The 1833 building has fine stone detailing and is an early use of the Tudor Gothic Style in public buildings The 1932 additions by WJ. Walker Todd, an equally well recognised architect, are well detailed in a complimentary historicist style.
Haddington County Buildings has two significant phases of construction : 1833 to the East and a later extension in 1932 to the West and South linking the building to an earlier 19th Century villa to the West corner. The 1st Edition Ordnance Survey Map of 1853 shows the footprint and internal plan of the 1833 court house, marked as the County Buildings. The three height sections returning from the South West corner of the building are evident in this plan. The map also shows the County Buildings within a large walled enclosure which also contains the town jail to the rear.
There wasca later internal refurbishment to the Southwest wing in 1956, at some point in the later 20th and earlier 19th Century former villa has been linked internally to the 1932 section.
The Gothis style of this building was a departure in design and unusual for Court Houses of this period, as they were predominantly built in an austere classical design.
The Birthplace of Alexander II of Scotland, which is noted on a plaque to the front of building.
A view of the Memorial to George Hay, VIII Marquis of Tweeddale [ 1787- 1876 ] which stands on Court Street, Haddington. It was erected in 1880 to commemorate the man who had been a distinguished soldier and Lord-Lieutenant of Haddingtonshire.
On the North side of Court Street is a collection of very fine buliding housing banks, and here too, is Haddington’s Post Office, which can be traced back to 1603 and one of the very first Post Offices in Scotland, servicing mail between the newly unified capitals of Edinburgh & London.
To end, a photograph of visitors from Aubigny being ably lead on a Tour by , then, President Mr. Frank Elliott.
Irene Higgenbotham 11th October 2021.
