[1] The first judicial building in the town was the old courthouse on the north side of Buccleuch Street which was originally commissioned as a chapel by the theologian, Robert Haldane, in 1799.

[6] The new building was designed by David Rhind in the Scottish baronial style, built in red sandstone from Locharbriggs Quarry and was officially opened in time for the spring assizes on 17 April 1866.

[1] A building designed as a post office by Walter Wood Robertson in the Jacobean style was erected on an adjacent site to the northeast of the courthouse in 1887 and later integrated into the complex.

[1] In November 1991, the building was the venue for the issue of a warrant for the arrest of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi and Lamin Khalifah Fhimah in connection with the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie on 21 December 1988.

[10] Megrahi was later convicted, by special court at Camp Zeist in the Netherlands, of 270 counts of murder but Fhimah was acquitted.