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Summary

Description

1859. Single storey, 4-bay, L-plan former school in plain gothic style with attached 2-storey, 2-bay schoolhouse to E (now used as offices, 2006); lower ancillary ranges forming U-plan courtyard to rear. Shouldered arched windows with plain circular recessed stone plaques above; steep-pitched multiple gabled roof with overhanging boarded timber eaves. Coursed rubble whinstone; stugged and smoothed blonde sandstone quoins and chamfered surrounds.

Bronze fixed multi-pane casement windows with ventilators; 8-pane timber sash and case windows to schoolhouse. 20th century glazed timber doors. Pitched slate roofs; corniced shouldered ashlar stacks with circular clay cans; mixture of cast-iron and plastic rainwater goods.

INTERIOR: main school interior has undergone remodelling to form office spaces. Schoolhouse interior, whilst also used as offices, has maintained its original layout and details such as shutters, panelled doors and a simple turned stair.

BOUNDARY WALL AND RAILINGS: whinstone rubble with rounded copes to S, E and W surrounding former playground. Cast-iron railings with decorative corner posts enclosing yard to street.

Statement of Special Interest

The school and schoolhouse are a good early example of a pre-Board School complex executed in a simple utilitarian design with well-detailed windows and stonework, surviving in its original plan form. The former school forms part of a strong group with the associated St. Peter's Church and the former St. Peter's Hall to the rear, the open playground and churchyard maintaining the visual links between the three.

It was built as the Galashiels Burgh Episcopal School for 265 pupils by the adjacent St Peter's Church. The school enjoyed a good reputation and there were many non-Episcopalian children on the register. In 1972 the building was converted to a Special Education Centre when the school fully relocated to the current St. Peter's School on Parsonage Road. By the mid 1980s the school was converted into Council Offices, for which it is still used today (2006).

References

Bibliography

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