Tea Street Workers’ Housing

Probably early nineteenth century, with a possible older tradition · 1-11 odd numbers · Category C listed

A rare low row of inhabited cottages at the heart of old Galashiels, preserving the scale and domestic character of the settlement before the textile town expanded around it.

Last reviewed: 15 July 2026.

The long row of white-rendered cottages at 1 to 11 Tea Street, Galashiels — The listed cottages form a long, low edge to Tea Street. Photograph: James Denham, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons / Geograph Britain and Ireland.

Quick Facts

Date	Historic Environment Scotland dates the surviving row to the early nineteenth century; local tradition claims a late seventeenth-century origin
Main alterations	Later rear additions and dormers; significant window and roofline changes around 1970
Location	1, 3, 5, 7, 9 and 11 Tea Street, in the Old Town near the Mercat Cross and Church Square
Building type	Single-storey traditional cottages, historically associated with cottars’ yards
Designation	Category C listed, LB31975; first listed in 1979, with the record revised in 1999
Construction	Rendered rubble walls, sandstone and later concrete margins, sash-and-case windows, small grey slates and surviving ridge chimneys
Current use	Private houses
Public access	The street elevation is visible from the public road; the houses and rear gardens are private
Grid reference	NT 49259 35705

Why It Matters

Tea Street preserves something that Galashiels has lost in many other places: an extended row of small, single-storey homes belonging to the scale of the old settlement. Mills, churches, banks and manufacturers’ villas explain the wealth and ambition of the nineteenth-century town, but these cottages bring the story back to domestic life.

Their architectural interest is not based on elaborate decoration. It lies in the low continuous frontage, simple openings, rendered rubble construction and close relationship between street, house and steep rear garden. Historic Environment Scotland regards the row as an important survivor because extensive redevelopment in the 1960s removed much of the older building stock nearby.

At the Heart of the Old Town

Tea Street stands close to the Mercat Cross, the old parish church and burial ground, the Gala Aisle and Old Gala House. This was the historic centre of Galashiels long before the settlement spread along the Gala Water as a major textile town. The surrounding group therefore allows visitors to read several layers of the town’s development within a short walk.

A local town-trail tradition also places Hunter’s Ha’ near the junction of Tea Street and School Close. It is described as a strongly built hunting lodge or tower, but it has disappeared and should not be confused with the surviving cottage row. The association is useful because it recalls how much older fabric and local topography have been lost around Tea Street.

How Old Are the Cottages?

The date requires care. Galashiels Heartland and other visitor sources describe the cottages as late seventeenth century and call them the town’s oldest continuously inhabited dwellings. Historic Environment Scotland, however, dates the listed row to the early nineteenth century. The RCAHMS study Historic Galashiels calls the cottages imprecisely dated and observes that Tea Street follows the regularised Old Town grid associated with the rebuilding of the parish centre around 1811, so the visible row could belong to that phase.

The most responsible conclusion is therefore that Tea Street occupies an old part of the settlement and may preserve an earlier building tradition, but the present cottages should not be stated confidently to date from the seventeenth century without physical or documentary evidence. Earlier fabric could survive within later reconstruction, yet that has not been demonstrated in the sources examined for this page.

Architecture of the Row

The listed group consists of the odd-numbered houses from 1 to 11. They form a single-storey row of two- and three-bay cottages. Numbers 1, 3, 5 and 9 have two-bay fronts with paired mullioned windows. Numbers 7 and 11 have three-bay fronts, their central doors flanked by single windows. The western gable is plain, with an adjoining gateway leading towards the rear gardens.

The walls are painted rendered rubble with a mixture of dressed sandstone and later concrete margins. Small grey slates cover the roofs. Some stone skews, square ridge chimneys and clay chimney cans survive, although the western part of the row has lost several stacks and skews. Sash-and-case windows and panelled doors with fanlights survive most clearly at numbers 7 and 11.

Thatch, Yards and Everyday Life

HES records a tradition that the cottages remained thatched at the beginning of the twentieth century. The steep garden ground behind them was used as cottars’ yards. These details help explain why the row matters socially: each small frontage was connected to working domestic ground behind, where household and productive activities could overlap.

The directory title uses “workers’ housing” as a broad interpretation rather than a documented original scheme. The cottages were not built as one known philanthropic or company-housing development. Establishing the occupations of successive residents requires census returns, valuation rolls and street directories. One documented example is Robert and Isabella Hunter of 1 Tea Street, whose son William, formerly a local resident, died while serving with the Highland Light Infantry at Arras in 1917.

Alteration and Survival

Continued occupation has inevitably changed the cottages. HES records later rear extensions and boxed or hipped dormers. Around 1970 the windows at numbers 1, 3, 5 and 9 were widened, while chimney stacks and stone skews were removed towards the west end. These changes contributed to the group’s reclassification from Category B to Category C in 1999.

Alteration does not erase the row’s importance. The overall form, alignment, domestic scale and relationship to the Old Town remain clear. Listing recognises the group value of the cottages and their boundary walls, not an imagined state in which every detail is original.

A Possible Fragment of New Gala House

One intriguing object is hidden from ordinary street view. HES notes that a carved stone balustrade in the garden of number 7 may have been salvaged from New Gala House, the great nineteenth-century residence demolished in 1984. The attribution is explicitly uncertain, but if confirmed it would connect this modest cottage row with one of the town’s most substantial lost buildings.

Tea Street and the 1960s Old Town

The survival of Tea Street becomes more striking when viewed beside Church Square. During comprehensive redevelopment in the 1960s, many older buildings were cleared and new flats designed by Peter Womersley were introduced into the historic centre. Tea Street survived that transformation. The contrast is not simply between “old” and “new”: together, the cottages and the modern housing show two very different attempts to provide compact homes at the heart of Galashiels.

Things to Notice

The exceptionally long, low roofline formed by six small houses
The difference between the two-bay and three-bay cottage fronts
Surviving sash windows, panelled doors and fanlights at numbers 7 and 11
The mix of sandstone and later concrete around altered openings
Remaining ridge chimneys and the gaps where others were removed
The gateway and steep rise of the private garden ground behind
The contrast with Womersley’s 1960s Church Square development nearby
The row’s relationship to the Mercat Cross, old burial ground and Gala Aisle

Timeline

Seventeenth century: The settlement develops around the Mercat Cross and parish centre; local tradition assigns the cottages themselves to the later part of this century, but that date is disputed.
Around 1811: The Old Town is regularised around a new parish church; the surviving Tea Street row may belong to this broad phase.
1824: John Wood’s map records Tea Street within the compact settlement.
1856-58: Ordnance Survey mapping and the detailed town plan provide firm evidence for the developed row and its plots.
Early twentieth century: The cottages are said still to have been thatched.
1960s: Comprehensive redevelopment removes much older fabric in the surrounding Old Town.
Around 1970: Several front windows are widened and some stacks and skews removed.
1979: The row is listed at Category B.
1999: The designation is revised and the group reclassified as Category C.
Today: All six cottages remain in residential use.

Significance Scores

These are editorial guide scores, not statutory designations. See How We Assess Significance.

Criterion	Score	Reason
Architectural Interest	3/5	Simple vernacular cottages whose group form is stronger than their altered individual details.
Historical Importance	4/5	A surviving element of the Old Town, documented on early maps and set among the settlement’s historic focal points.
Social Significance	5/5	Still-inhabited small houses that foreground domestic and working life rather than institutional or elite history.
Rarity	4/5	A scarce surviving row after extensive clearance of comparable old-town fabric.
Townscape / Landscape Contribution	4/5	The low continuous frontage is a defining element of the Old Town and a valuable contrast with later redevelopment.

Notes and Uncertainties

The surviving row is dated to the early nineteenth century by HES. The often-repeated late seventeenth-century date is a local tradition and should not be presented as established fact.
RCAHMS suggests that the row may relate to the regularised plan around the 1811 parish church, but describes the cottages as imprecisely dated.
“Workers’ housing” is a useful directory category, not proof that the cottages were erected by a mill owner or as a planned industrial housing scheme.
The traditional use of the rear ground as cottars’ yards is recorded by HES, but detailed ownership and occupational histories remain to be reconstructed.
The carved balustrade at number 7 is only possibly from New Gala House. Its provenance has not been demonstrated.
Hunter’s Ha’ is a lost nearby site known from local historical tradition; it was not part of the listed cottage row.

Image and Licence Notes

The photograph above clearly shows the cottage row and is reusable under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0; the creator and licence are given in the caption. Because the buildings are private homes, new photographs should be taken from public ground and should avoid intrusive views into windows or rear gardens.

Related Places

Sources

Historic Environment Scotland, 1, 3, 5, 7, 9 and 11 Tea Street and boundary walls, LB31975.
RCAHMS / Historic Scotland, Historic Galashiels: Archaeology and Development, 2011, discussion of the Old Town and Tea Street, p. 80.
National Records of Scotland, Plan of the Town of Galashiels by John Wood, 1824, RHP82832.
Catalogue of British Town Maps, Galashiels, John Wood, 1824, with repository references and map description.
Galashiels Heartland of the Borders, Town Trail: Tea Street, source for the local late seventeenth-century and Hunter’s Ha’ traditions.
Trove, Galashiels Old Town archaeological place record, with links to Tea Street and surrounding sites.
Scottish Borders Council, Galashiels Conservation Area.
Coldstream and District Local History Society, Private William Hunter, recording his family at 1 Tea Street.
Wikimedia Commons, Tea Street, Galashiels, Scottish Borders, James Denham, CC BY-SA 2.0.