Description

Loch Lomond And Trossachs National Park Planning Authority

Aberfoyle Primary School, is a large, roughly L-plan Gothic single storey school with a 1 ½-storey schoolhouse attached. It has 3 main phases of development, beginning in 1870, followed by a separate SE block built circa 1890, and the two sections connected by a linking block in 1906; all three phases have been designed or overseen by the same architect, John Honeyman and the same detailing continued throughout with the use of shouldered windows and gable-headed bays breaking eaves with tripartite cusped lancet windows. There are also some further 20th century additions. Aberfoyle Primary School is the work of one of the better known Scottish architects of the later 19th century.

The original 1870 block is the most westerly part, and was roughly rectangular plan, comprising the W facing schoolhouse, with the 3 S facing bays, the central bay gabled with triple lancets, adjoining to the E forming the school accommodation. The front (W) elevation of the schoolhouse was symmetrical, of three bays with a central gabled and buttressed porch; this has a shouldered doorway under a pointed arch ornamented with a head-stopped hoodmould. During one of the later phases of building, a third bay was added to the N gable, and a rectangular bay window built out to the left of the porch. The S gable has a carved roundel containing the date '1870'.

The 1890 block appears to have been roughly E-plan, with a 5-bay entrance elevation facing W; the gabled central bay has a pointed arched doorway with a hoodmould with foliate stops. It is flanked by bipartite shouldered windows; the outer right bay is an advanced gable with lancets. The form of the outer left bay has been obscured by the 1906 linking section, which subsumed it. This linking section extends to the W to join with the 1870 school block, mirroring its 3-bay elevation, with a projecting gabled entrance porch between the two sections; the porch has a pointed arched door opening with foliate-capitalled columns and hoodmould with foliate stops.

To the centre of the E elevation of the 1890 block, a T-plan extension was added in the later 20th century.

Interior:

Relatively plain; reeded timber-boarded panelling to corridors. Plasterwork and roof timbers may remain under suspended ceilings; simple cornicing to rear offices. Most original joinery and internal doors remain.

Materials:

To 1870 sections, whin rubble brought to courses; to remainder, mostly squared snecked whin rubble; tooled sandstone dressings, margins and quoins; chamfered margins. Timber-boarded 2-leaf storm doors to all principal entrances. Mostly timber sash and case windows; 2-pane to schoolhouse; multi-pane top sash and single-pane bottom sash to 1890 and 1906 sections; 6-pane to S elevation; fixed 4 or 5 pane windows with top hoppers to lancet openings; leaded panes to bipartite windows on W elevation of 1890 block. Pitched, graded slate roofs; 2 octagonal louvered ridge ventilators; overhanging bracketed eaves; some plain bargeboards. 2 corniced ridge stacks to schoolhouse; 1 gable-head stack to 1890s block, 2 wallhead stacks to 1906 linking section; all corniced or coped; mostly octagonal cans. Mostly cast-iron rainwater goods including some hoppers dated '1906'.

Boundary Walls:

Random rubble walls with rough saddle-back coping, forming an almost complete boundary around the school.

Statement of Interest

John Honeyman was also contracted to design Aberfoyle Parish Church (see separate listing) at the same time as the first phase of the school in 1870.

External Links

• Historic Environment Scotland Listing
• Wikidata Q17853817

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  Renovating Old Houses: Bringing New Life to Vintage Homes (For Pros By Pros)
• 
  Building Small Projects (New Best of Fine Woodworking)
• 
  Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990
• 
  Listed Buildings and Other Heritage Assets
• 
  Pevsner's Architectural Glossary (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Introductions)
• 
  Department for Communities Listed Historic Buildings of Northern Ireland: Information Guide for the 2nd Survey of Historic Buildings