28 - 30 Market Street, Haddington
This small tenement close to the Town Hall in the centre of Haddington incorporates material from every period in the history of the Burgh since its foundation by David I in the mid twelfth century. Drain and foundation trenches revealed pieces of twelfth and thirteenth century Colstoun ware pottery, and the walls included medieval and post-medieval masonry. Part of the frontage is an example of plastered timber frame construction, common in the nineteenth century, but now very rare. The west gable, which was probably a seventeenth century first floor hall, contains a large fireplace whose curved chimney-piece now rises through the bedroom of the flat above.
The building was gutted in the 1950s when it became part of the Kilspindie knitwear factory. Vincent Policella commissioned its restoration in 1997 with support from Historic Scotland. The internal structure was rebuilt and fitted out to form four small flats and three shops. A geometrical pencheck stair within a new tower was built at the rear, the roof was pantiled and the exterior was limewashed a traditional ochre colour. The eighteenth century sashes were carefully repaired and, on the basis of a paint investigation, repainted "nursery green", for the first time breaking the rule established in the 1960s that all windows in Haddington should be white.
