Erected in 1898 to replace the previous Dawick’s Buffet (a temperance hotel/boarding-house and restaurant that burnt down on 3rd October 1897), this building’s unknown architect was possibly Ernest Larcomb, who had a professional and social relationship with the Dawick family. The brick building contained 40 rooms, including 24 bedrooms and 5 sitting rooms. In 1902 a further 24 rooms (bedrooms and sitting rooms) were added. By 1909, it was advertised as the largest and leading private hotel in the district, its dining room seating 110 guests. Its cooking range was 11 feet long.
The nearby Royal Hotel was scheduled for demolition, so the Dawick brothers bought the Royal’s liquor license and their previously teetotal Buffet, became the ‘New Royal Hotel.’ The Dawicks sold it in 1913, and since then its name has varied, but so far it has always reverted to ‘Royal’.
