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Summary

Description

Robert Wilson, 1891, addition John A Carfrae 1912. Single-storey, irregular-plan cottage-style Board School with swept-roof, many bargeboarded gables, tall windows, and ridge-vents to roof. Snecked sandstone rubble with red sandstone ashlar dressings; roughcast to S elevation. Base course. Long and short quoins. Chamfered window and door openings. Decorative terracotta finials with ball-tops to gable apexes of 1891 building.

N (ENTRANCE) ELEVATION: 1891, symmetrical. Advanced, 3-bay gable to centre; tall, paired, central windows in pointed arch openings with plain roundels in tympania; relieving arch above; tall windows flanking. Advanced (flush with gable), 3-bay sections flanking gable; swept roofs; small gables with king-posted bargeboards to inner bays over timber boarded doors in shouldered, stop-chamfered surrounds; bipartite and single windows to outer bays; battered stacks above. Recessed section to outer bays with tall, gabled, bipartite window, breaking eaves.

E (ROAD) ELEVATION: advanced 2-window gable of original building to outer right. 1912 building to left. 3-bay gable to centre with tall central bipartite window below relieving arch; tall flanking windows. Flat-roofed link building to right; 2-leaf timber panelled door in roll-moulded architrave and bipartite window. Single bay to outer left.

W (SIDE) ELEVATION: recessed 3-bay 1912 gable to right; tall, central bipartite window below relieving-arch; flanking tall windows. 2-gabled 1891 building advanced to left; king-posted, gabled, transomed and mullioned bipartite window with pointed-arched lights, breaking eaves to centre; 2-window gable to outer left.

S (REAR) ELEVATION: 1912. Stepped composition of 3 sections. 3-bay gable to centre with central bipartite and flanking windows; blind gable advanced to right with gablehead stack; long bay recessed to left with single-window.

Predominantly 12- and 18-pane glazing in timber sash and case windows. Coped stacks with red and yellow clay cans. Deep bracketed eaves; decorative bargeboards to 1891 building, plain bargeboards to 1912 addition. Graded grey slate with red terracotta ridge tiles.

INTERIOR: large central hall with arched trusses, roof lights, and removeable glazed screen to adjacent classroom.

OUTBUILDINGS AND BOUNDARY WALL: small rubble outbuilding to S (former lavatory) with pitched leaded roof and 4 timber boarded doors. Coped random rubble boundary wall.

Statement of Special Interest

A very well-detailed school in a prominent position on Thorburn Road, just behind the Lorimer Rustic Cottages and Rowand Anderson's Episcopal Church, and opposite the Aged Christian Friend Society's Cottage Homes (which were also built by Wilson and Carfrae). The detailing of the original building is generous. With its broad gables, deep eaves, swept roofs and battered chimney stacks, it has a solid and snug character. The terracotta finials are a particularly nice touch. The 1912 extension provided two additional classrooms, and a combined workshop and cookery room. The exterior accords with the original building, but is meaner in its details, with shallower eaves and thinner stacks. The central hall, which was part of the original building, was fairly innovative at the time it was built, and provided an indoor space for gym or assemblies. Robert Wilson was the architect to the Edinburgh School Board, and J A Carfrae was his successor.

References

Bibliography

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