Kirkcudbright Galleries

About Kirkcudbright Galleries

The building now called the Kirkcudbright Galleries was previously Kirkcudbright Town Hall, constructed in 1878-9 to the design of the Edinburgh architects Peddie and Kinnear and built by local builder William Wallace. It actually replaced an earlier structure built in 1863 to house a library, reading room and meeting hall, but unsound foundations led to its demolition on safety grounds in 1877.

The new ‘Public Buildings’ as they were called at the time, housed on the ground floor the Town Council chamber, reading room, library, committee room and record room; on the first floor was a large public hall with cloak rooms and the original Stewartry Museum was on the top floor, until it moved to its present building in 1893. For much of the 20th century the Town hall was a well-used venue for a wide variety of social events and performances.

From the year 2000, the Town Hall became the venue for an annual summer art exhibition organised by a local community group - Kirkcudbright 2000 - with the aim of promoting the idea of creating a gallery of national significance in the town in order to celebrate Kirkcudbright’s rich artistic heritage. Dumfries and Galloway Council took up the idea and, with support from the Heritage Lottery Fund and other major funders, the interior of the building was redesigned to meet the requirements of a modern art gallery to create the new Kirkcudbright Galleries, which opened in June 2018. It has a permanent exhibition telling Kirkcudbright’s art story and an annual programme of temporary and touring exhibitions.