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Summary

Description

E J MacRae, 1932. 2-storey, 54-bay symmetrical generously fenestrated linear school, with outer bays of S (principal) elevation splayed forward to form open U-plan. Rendered, with polished ashlar dressings; painted. Base course; cill courses at ground and 1st floors; band course between ground and 1st floors; decorative frieze hugging eaves; corniced eaves course.

E J MacRae, 1932. 2-storey, 54-bay symmetrical generously fenestrated linear school, with outer bays of S (principal) elevation splayed forward to form open U-plan. Rendered, with polished ashlar dressings; painted. Base course; cill courses at ground and 1st floors; band course between ground and 1st floors; decorative frieze hugging eaves; corniced eaves course.

S (PRINCIPAL) ELEVATION: 8-bay advanced block at centre, with regular fenestration to both floors, surmounted by cornice and blocking course, with blank central wallhead tablet, advanced and raised as block pediment at centre, ball finials on pyramidal plinths, to outer left and right. Remainder of principal elevation with regular fenestration to both floors, including 3-light canted windows at ground, in penultimate bays to re-entrant angles to left and right from centre, with tripartite windows above. Pair of mirrored single bay entrance blocks slightly advanced and breaking eaves to re-entrant angles, comprising steps up to architra 'Girls' (to W doorway) and 'Boys' (to E doorway), with timber doors and fanlights; blank architraved doorways in bays at regular fenestration to remainder of elevation.

W ELEVATION: not seen, 1999.

Predominantly 12-pane timber sash and case windows, variety of multi-pane casement windows and modern glazing to rear. Grey slate roofs. Cast-iron rainwater goods. Rendered ridge stacks, red brick wallhead stacks; coped, with circular cans.

INTERIOR: predominantly unaltered. Dining Hall includes John Maxwell's mural 'Children's Games and Amusements', 1934-5 (see Notes).

Statement of Special Interest

Built to a standard 2-storey, single corridor design (see Craigentinny et al.) by the City Architect, E J MacRae, Craigmillar Primary School is of particular interest for the important in situ 'Children's Games and Amusements' dining hall mural by the Scottish artist John Maxwell (1905-1962). Maxwell attended the Edinburgh College of Art from 1921 to 1926. In 1927 he was awarded a travelling scholarship after a year of postgraduate study, enabling him to go to Paris, where he studied at the Academie Moderne under Fernand Leger and Amedee Ozenfant. In 1932 he exhibited at the Society of Scottish Artists, to which he was elected the following year. 1933 also saw Maxwell being awarded the Andrew Grant Fellowship at the Edinburgh College of Art, during which appointment he painted 'Children's Games and Amusements' at Craigmillar Primary School, a large and important work that hints at the decorative, neo-Romantic feel of later pieces. The theme of the mural was apparently part-suggested by the school pupils, showing a scene of children playing in an invented and idealistic townscape, and was 'in keeping with the social aspirations of such new housing schemes' (Long) as Craigmillar, built to house some of those moved from the city centre's slum areas. In 1935 Maxwell became the General Drawing and Still Life Painting teacher at the Edinburgh College of Art, where he worked alongside his friend William Gillies (1898-1973). Other murals by Maxwell include those in the Atlantic Restaurant and the Garden Club in the 1938 Empire Exhibition, Glasgow. Maxwell became an Academician of the Royal Scottish Academy in 1949. Illness forced Maxwell to retire from the Edinburgh College of Art in 1961, and he died the next year, aged fifty-seven.

References

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