The first municipal building in the city was the
Stirling Tolbooth in Broad Street which was completed in 1705. Burgh leaders then relocated to The Athenaeum in King Street in 1875. In the late 19th century, civic leaders decided to erect a more substantial municipal complex to address the growing needs of the city: the site they selected was occupied by a long narrow building, the old corn exchange. The old corn exchange had been the venue for the weekly grain markets in the 19th century but had also been used for public meetings and theatre performances. A
statue of the former
Prime Minister and local
member of parliament,
Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, designed by
Paul Raphael Montford was unveiled to the southwest of the proposed complex by the then Prime Minister,
H. H. Asquith, in November 1913. The foundation stone for the new complex was laid by
King George V on 11 July 1914. It was designed by
John Gaff Gillespie in the
Scottish baronial style, built in
ashlar stone at a cost of £21,000 and was officially opened in March 1918. The proposed design involved a symmetrical main frontage with thirteen bays facing onto Corn Exchange Road; there was intended to be a left section, a central section and a right section but the right section was never built. The central section of seven bays, which was slightly recessed, featured an arched doorway on the ground floor, a prominent
oriel window on the first floor and a gable above. There were round headed windows in the other bays on the ground floor and
mullioned windows on the first floor. The
Duke and
Duchess of York visited the municipal buildings to receive the freedom of the city on 10 August 1928. A modern extension, designed by Walter H. Gillespie, was erected on the vacant site where the original right hand section should have been built, in 1968. and remained the meeting place of the enlarged Stirling District Council after it was formed in 1975. However, it ceased to be the local seat of government when the new
unitary authority,
Stirling Council, was formed at
Old Viewforth in 1996. The council carried out a programme of refurbishment works to convert it into a digital technology hub in 2017. Works of art in the municipal buildings include a portrait by
Francis Henry Newbery of the guardian of the
fens known as the "Fen Reeve", a portrait by
Thomas Stuart Smith of a man smoking a Cuban cigarette and a landscape by Duncan Cameron depicting
Stirling Castle. ==See also==