[4] The new building was designed by William Black in the Scottish baronial style, built in rubble masonry and was completed in 1879.

[5] The design involved an asymmetrical main frontage of four bays facing onto Newmarket Street.

The third bay featured a segmental headed doorway flanked by colonettes supporting a hood mould; there was a mullioned and transomed window facing onto a balcony on the first floor, and a gable containing a quatrefoil above.

[1] A memorial by the sculptor William Grant Stevenson, in the form of a Highlander protecting his fallen comrade, mounted on a pedestal and intended to commemorate local service personnel who had died in the Second Boer War, was erected in front of the municipal buildings in 1905.

[6][7][8] King George V, accompanied by Queen Mary and Princess Mary visited the municipal buildings in July 1914,[9] King George VI, accompanied by Queen Elizabeth, attended the municipal buildings in June 1946,[10] and Queen Elizabeth II, accompanied by the Duke of Edinburgh, met with civic leaders at the municipal buildings in July 1955.