Corner House 78 High Street and 3 Lady Street

 Please note all dates are approximate. 

If you have any further information, documents, photos or memories about this shop  let us know in the comments section at the bottom or on Annan The History Town Group Facebook page. 

If you click/tap on a photo it will enlarge that photo and give you the pictures as a slideshow.   

2020 © V Russell

Category B listed building includes 74-78 High Street. This means it is of Regional Importance. The description says Frank Carruthers of Dumfries & Lockerbie, circa 1900... 3 storey corner block with shops & hotel... Elaborately detailed S elevation to High St with sculptured ornament at top floor, recessed circular turret turns corner (wide hotel entrance in canted corner below)... plain elevation to Lady St... High St elevation has 2 bays with tripartites...balconies to upper floor on columns supported on stone corbels... narrow left bay with oculus at 2nd floor... turret at angle with Lady Sthas columned mullions & slated dome...rear wing raised to 3 storeys. 

The Corner House Hotel isn't really on the High Street as it's original entrance was at 3 Lady Street. At times there was a bakery, restaurant & entrance at Number 78 (where Vision Express is now) This can be seen in this old photo. The side doors can also be seen.

1920s photo

Further information regarding Number 78 can be found in a separate blog.

Although a Temperance Hotel, we cannot find evidence of it coming under the State Management Scheme. 

Memories:  Maclean's Temperance Hotel & Café, High Street & Lady Street, was built in 1899. Proprietor was A. Bridger.

1970s © Callum Watson

The Hotel features as a background for loads of views of the High Street and old postcards.

Courtesy Annan Museum
Viewed from Bank Street

1920s postcard

Old adverts show how things have changed over the years as the hotel embraced new technology.

1925 RoM

1935 RoM

1949
Notice Hot and Cold water in MOST rooms

1950 RoM
H&C in ALL rooms

1951 RoM
Radio in all rooms and mobile heaters available!!

1952 RoM
Electric fires

1960s Queen of the Border Guide
Electric Blankets fitted 

1971 RoM 
Now licensed - extended to 20 bedrooms and function room being built

1973 RoM
Central Heating 

1979 RoM
A Mount Charlotte Hotel with 34 bedrooms

1986 RoM
The Lodge Well Room is named after the old well
located about where their car park ends.
Lady Street was called Lodge Wynd in the 1800s

1990 RoM

2000 RoM
Private ownership

2022 Dotti Irving has written us a short history of her parents and their purchase of the Corner House Hotel - for which we give our profuse thanks.

My parents, Alex and Sheila Irving, were both born in Annan and, apart from periods abroad during World War 2 and in London immediately afterwards, they lived there all their lives.  Dad was one of many children of Sandy and Lily Irving; Sandy was the Post Master in Annan Post Office. My mother, Sheila McCaig, was the elder daughter of Neil and Ruby McCaig; Neil was the minister at Annan Old Parish Church, a position he held for more than fifty years.

Alex and Sheila were married in Annan – by my grandfather of course! – in 1947.  They then went to live in Barnes in South-West London since Dad was a rising star with the Standard Chartered Bank, based in the City.  However London was a tough city right then; Sheila was pregnant with my older sister, Rosemary, they had few friends and rationing was still very strict in the wake of the war.  She was homesick so they decided to come home and – of all things- to buy a hotel!

On the surface it was a crazy decision.  My mother had been brought up in the manse with every meal cooked for her by Maggie, the live-in maid; Dad was no more skilled in the kitchen than she was.  But he had had a particularly gruelling war, fighting the Japanese in Burma as part of the notorious Wingate expedition. Many of the men on that expedition died of starvation; my father was spared but he had made a pledge to himself that, if he did survive, he would find a way to feed people.

So that was that. Crazy or not, they entered into negotiations with Mr Bridger who owned both what was then The Temperance Hotel at 78 High Street and the Firth Hotel, further up the hill where it still stands today.  The Temperance Hotel was a better proposition because it was bigger, it was bang in the middle of the town and it had a popular café on the ground floor.

As soon as the deal was struck, Mum and Dad changed the name of the hotel to The Corner House and within a year or two the café had been replaced by a thriving bakery which boasted the best morning rolls and butter toffee in the region.

How they managed to build that business and how my father, in particular, took on the whole of the Gretna State Control monopoly and got that law changed in 1968 is the stuff of another blog…!