Court Residence


(Linlithgow Sheriff Court)

A hotel within a historic former courthouse on the south side of the High Street, Court Residence is a Tudoresque building by Edinburgh-based architects Brown and Wardrop completed in 1863 as Linlithgow Sheriff Court. Following a conversion in 2014, it re-opened as a luxury hotel, retaining many of its period features, but now featuring fully-serviced accommodation, comprising twenty-four one-bedroom studio apartments, twenty-one suites, three two-bedroom apartments, five split-level apartments located in the former Court Three and a courtyard apartment with disabled access, featuring a dramatic arched ceiling. The main courtroom space was altered during the conversion, removing the bench and seating, although the fine corbelled timber roof remains.

Built to accommodate the county courthouse and police station following complaints when it was suggested Linlithgow Palace was restored as a centre of justice, this two-storey sandstone building was extended in 1875 with the addition of a single storey cell block. The main building housed Court One and Court Three, with the ground floor used as office space. A further extension to the side, which contained Court Two, was built in the 1980s but demolished in 2014. B-listed since 1989, the courthouse closed in 2008 with its 'business' moved to courts within the West Lothian Civic Centre in Livingston, now the centre of local administration. It is said the building is haunted.

This was the site of the home of Archbishop John Hamilton (c.1511-71) and a plaque by Amelia Paton (1820 - 1904) commemorates James Stewart, Regent Moray (1531-70), who was shot from the house by the Archbishop's nephew James Hamilton of Bothwellhaugh, the first recorded assassination by a firearm.


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