Dunfermline City Chambers is a building historically designed to be the centre of local government in Dunfermline

Dunfermline

Dunfermline is a town and former Royal Burgh in Fife, Scotland, on high ground from the northern shore of the Firth of Forth. According to a 2008 estimate, Dunfermline has a population of 46,430, making it the second-biggest settlement in Fife. Part of the town's name comes from the Gaelic word...

, Fife

Fife

Fife is a council area and former county of Scotland. It is situated between the Firth of Tay and the Firth of Forth, with inland boundaries to Perth and Kinross and Clackmannanshire...

. In more recent times most of these functions have been devolved to other locations, but [as of 2008] the impressive edifice still houses the Council Chambers, the Burgh

Burgh

A burgh was an autonomous corporate entity in Scotland and Northern England, usually a town. This type of administrative division existed from the 12th century, when King David I created the first royal burghs. Burgh status was broadly analogous to borough status, found in the rest of the United...

 Court

Court

A court is a form of tribunal, often a governmental institution, with the authority to adjudicate legal disputes between parties and carry out the administration of justice in civil, criminal, and administrative matters in accordance with the rule of law...

 and Dunfermline's Registrar

Register office

A register office is a British term for a civil registry, a government office and depository where births, deaths and marriages are officially recorded and where you can get officially married, without a religious ceremony...

 Office.

The building, constructed in the period 1875-79, was created by James C Walker who also designed the first Carnegie Library

Carnegie Library

Carnegie Library, Carnegie Public Library, Carnegie Free Library, Carnegie Free Public Library, Andrew Carnegie Library, Andrew Carnegie Free Library or Carnegie Library Building may refer to any of the following Carnegie libraries:- California :*Carnegie Library , listed on the National Register...

. It employs a harmonious composite of French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

, Gothic

Gothic Revival architecture

The Gothic Revival is an architectural movement that began in the 1740s in England...

 and Scots baronial architectural styles and features a prominent four-face clock tower

Clock tower

A clock tower is a tower specifically built with one or more clock faces. Clock towers can be either freestanding or part of a church or municipal building such as a town hall. Some clock towers are not true clock towers having had their clock faces added to an already existing building...

. It was constructed on the site of an older Town House of 1771 which was in its turn built to replace the 17th century Town House, demolished as part of 18th century improvements to make way for Bridge Street.

There are many features of historic and architectural significance in the building. The structure includes heraldic stones recovered from the demolished 1771 Town House. These are plausibly believed to have originated from the now derelict Royal Palace of Dunfermline a few hundred yards to the south. The finely designed interior of the City Chambers incorporates many notable features, in particular the oak

Oak

An oak is a tree or shrub in the genus Quercus , of which about 600 species exist. "Oak" may also appear in the names of species in related genera, notably Lithocarpus...

 hammer beam roof which provides the ceiling for the Council Chamber itself. The historic police cells

Scottish Prison Service

The Scottish Prison Service is an executive agency of the Scottish Government tasked with managing prisons in Scotland...

, although no longer in use, have also been preserved.

Furnishings include a number of notable artworks including busts of several Scottish sovereigns, a statue of Robert Burns

Robert Burns

Robert Burns was a Scottish poet and a lyricist. He is widely regarded as the national poet of Scotland, and is celebrated worldwide...

, Sir Joseph Noel Paton

Joseph Noel Paton

Sir Joseph Noel Paton FRSA, LL. D. was a Scottish artist, born in Wooer's Alley, Dunfermline, Fife.Born to a family of weavers who worked with damask, Joseph continued the family trade for a short time...

's painting, Spirit of Religion, and an early twentieth century portrait of King Malcolm

Malcolm III of Scotland

Máel Coluim mac Donnchada , was King of Scots...

 and Queen Margaret

Saint Margaret of Scotland

Saint Margaret of Scotland , also known as Margaret of Wessex and Queen Margaret of Scotland, was an English princess of the House of Wessex. Born in exile in Hungary, she was the sister of Edgar Ætheling, the short-ruling and uncrowned Anglo-Saxon King of England...

.