The building was commissioned as a result of a local initiative to raise money for a burgh hall in 1884. The site chosen by the burgh leaders was open land at the corner of Albert Street and Alexandra Street. The foundation stone for the new building was laid by the
Earl of Airlie on 2 September 1886 and a bazaar was held in the local school to celebrate the event. It was designed by
Andrew Heiton and his nephew,
Andrew Granger Heiton, in the
Tudor Revival style, built in red
sandstone and was officially opened on 29 April 1887. The design involved an asymmetrical main frontage facing onto Albert Street; the central bay featured three arched doorways with
architraves separated by
brackets supporting a
canted balcony. There was a central five-part window on the second floor and a
half-timbered gable above. The left-hand bay featured a three-stage
bell tower with a
lancet window in the first stage, a three-part window in the second stage and half-timbered section which was slightly
jettied out in the third stage. The tower was surmounted by a
pyramid-shaped roof and a
weather vane. The right-hand section, which was slightly recessed and only single-storey, comprised two bays each with
casement windows. Internally, the principal rooms were the grand hall, the council chambers and the lesser hall. A bell from the French
frigate La Nécessité, which had been captured by the crew of the
fifth-rate,
HMS Horatio, on 21 February 1810 during the
Napoleonic Wars, was installed in the bell tower. It had been recovered by the former purser of HMS
Horatio and carefully preserved by his family, who lived locally, for much of the 19th century. Ownership of the town hall was vested in trustees until 1905 when it was presented to the burgh council. The building continued to serve as the meeting place of the burgh council for much of the 20th century but ceased to be the local seat of government when the enlarged
Perth and Kinross District Council was formed in 1975. While ownership of the building was retained by the district council, the management of the town hall was passed to the Alyth Halls Association at that time and the administration of the building was passed to a local management committee in 1996. The bell, which had become damaged over time, was moved to the foyer of the town hall in 2000. ==References==