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Summary

Description

William Ferguson, 1900-1901. 3-storey and attic, cruciform-plan, symmetrical Free-Renaissance style Board School. Principal elevations to both King Street (S) and High Street (N). 6-bay elevation to High Street with advanced central 4 bays, Girls' and Boys' entrances to returns of advanced section, steep, piended, finialed pavilion roofs to outer bays of advanced section and round-arched staircase windows to centre. 5-bay gabled elevation to King Street with scrolled pediments over top floor windows and flat-roofed modern addition to centre at ground. Squared, snecked, bull-faced red sandstone with polished sandstone ashlar dressings. Moulded cornices above more prominent windows to N and S; intermittent eaves course; bracketed eaves to parts of N, E and W elevations. Long and short quoins and window margins. Regular symmetrical fenestration of predominantly mullioned bipartite, tripartite and paired windows.

KING STREET ELEVATION: 3-bay central section: bipartite windows to centre; pediment to central 1st floor window; flat-roofed extension obscuring ground floor; small central gable to attic with oculus window and carved stonework; ball-finialed parapet flanking gable. Gabled outer bays with 4-light windows to each floor; scrolled pediments above 2nd floor windows; small attic windows to gable apexes.

HIGH STREET ELEVATION: 4-bay advanced section to centre: tripartite transomed and mullioned staircase windows to 2 central bays; windows to upper floor arched with prominent keystones; BURGH PUBLIC SCHOOL. SCHOOL BOARD OF RUTHERGLEN inscribed between 1st and 2nd floor windows with date, 1901, above under mini pediment. 5 stories of mezzanine windows to outer bays of advanced section. Girls' and Boys' entrances to right and left returns: 6 curved steps to timber-boarded doors in roll-moulded corniced architraves; bipartite windows above; advanced chimney stack to left of Girls' (W) entrance. Tripartite windows to recessed outer bays.

E AND W (SIDE) ELEVATIONS: 4 bays regularly fenestrated. Most northerly bay gabled.

Timber sash and case windows with small-pane glazing to upper sashes and plate glass or 2-pane glazing to lower sashes. Corniced sandstone stacks with red clay cans. Graded grey slate roof. Cast-iron rainwater goods with square hoppers to E and W.

INTERIOR: exceptionally well-detailed and little-altered interior. Top-lit hall at centre of building with galleries to upper floors and glazed ceiling supported on decorative timber trusses. Cast-iron balusters to galleries with occasional wrought-iron panels and timber handrail and corniced newel posts. Adjacent Boys' and Girls' staircases at N end of hall with similar balusters and arched entrances to each floor. Narrow arched entrances to former school offices, cloakrooms etc. at mezzanine floors off each flight of stairs. Classrooms arranged to S, E and W of central hall; paired classrooms on E and W sides divided by folding glazed timber screens (mostly boarded over); half-glazed timber panelled doors with fanlights in moulded architraves to all classrooms. Moulded dados and cornices to hall, galleries and stair; tiles to dado; tongue and groove panelling to dado in classrooms. Cast-iron radiators. Circular cast-iron ventilation grills to ceilings of 2nd floor classrooms.

BOUNDARY WALLS, RAILINGS, GATEPIERS AND GATES: coped sandstone boundary walls to N and S with decorative railings. Matching foot gates to N. Sandstone gatepiers to S.

Statement of Special Interest

The school has principal elevations to both King Street and High Street. The main entrance is from King Street. An exceptionally well-detailed Board School occupying a prominent position on both High Street and King Street and making a significant and positive contribution to the streetscape.

The external elevations are symmetrical and well balanced, but enlivened by slightly different window treatment on each floor and by the use of decorative mouldings and other details to a degree that is unusual for a school building. The exterior is largely unaltered, except for the unsympathetic flat-roofed addition on the S elevation. Although this extension is out of character with the rest of the building, the original fabric of the school still appears to exist behind it. The plan of the school is fairly common for its date, with the classrooms arranged around a central top-lit hall and separate staircases for girls and boys. Similar arrangements can be found at a number of schools in the vicinity of Glasgow, including Milton Primary School in West Dunbartonshire which also has very similar internal detailing with arches coming off the staircases, decorative ironwork on the balusters, glass screens between the classrooms and so on.

William Ferguson was a local architect who had studied under John Burnet senior and then worked as an assistant with Campbell, Douglas and Sellars and then Rowand Anderson before setting up his own practice in 1886. His work is mainly concentrated in the area around Cambuslang, where he lived, and he built two other schools in Rutherglen: Eastfield Public School in 1898 and a new wing on the MacDonald School (1891) in King Street.

The school was opened in 1902.

References

Bibliography

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