Description

Circa 1860. Fine little-altered 2-storey, 3-bay, rectangular-plan, former schoolhouse with centre timpany gable, timber-pilastered door, and adjoining single storey reading room. Harled with ashlar quoin strips and margins, and moulded skewputts.

FURTHER DESCRIPTION: symmetrical principal elevation to W with bays grouped toward centre and 1st floor openings close to eaves; narrow centre bay with panelled timber door and 2-part fanlight, blind arrowslit in timpany gable and flanking cast iron downpipes with decorative rainwater hoppers. Blank elevation to rear (E) with almost full-height wall of reading room abutting at right.

4-pane glazing pattern in timber sash and case windows. Grey slates. Coped harled stacks with full-complement of polygonal cans. Ashlar-coped skews with moulded skewputts.

INTERIOR: some good interior detail retained including moulded cornices, timber fire surrounds and cast iron insets; curving staircase with plain ironwork railing, timber handrail and decoratively consoled arch.

FORMER READING ROOM: slated and harled, single storey, 3-bay, gabled, L-plan structure to NE of schoolhouse. Entrance elevation to E with advanced, canted bay to S and door on right return. 4-pane timber sash and case glazing.

BOUNDARY WALLS AND GATES: rubble-coped roughly coursed rubble boundary walls with hoopwork gates.

Statement of Interest

The former schoolhouse is a good, little altered example of a pre-1872 Education Act building. Forming part of a small group of educational buildings, its interest is enhanced by the adjoining Reading Room, or 'Roomie', and the surrounding school walls as well as the related nearby former Morrice School (see separate listing). The Reading Room was originally part of a two-roomed boys school (room to south demolished) while the nearby former Morrice School, dated 1856, was an endowed female school. These school buildings became redundant in 1895 with the opening of the new mixed Primary School. Situated at the heart of the village, the former Schoolhouse and Reading Room is an important part of Kincardine O'Neil's architectural and social history. Many rural schools, which may have consisted of only a single room in a house, became redundant following the 1872 Education Act which made education compulsory and acted as a catalyst for a nationwide programme of school building.

Kincardine O'Neil is situated on the Deeside route to Balmoral, and the boundary walls of the Schoolhouse have been altered at the south west angle to incorporate a granite water trough commemorating the Jubilee of Queen Victoria, in 1897. Sited close to the west boundary is a fine rectangular-plan, ogee-capped, ashlar fountain dated 1858 and dedicated to St Erchan who founded a monastic settlement at Kincardine O'Neil. Immediately to the south is the fourteenth century Church of Kincardine O'Neil, 'one of the most interesting medieval buildings in the north-east of Scotland' (Third Statistical Account, p388).

Re-categorised as C(S) from B for Group (2006). The listing relates specifically to the group interest of the subject. It applies, as always, to interior as well as exterior, as appropriate to building type.

Address and list description revised 2008.

External Links

• Historic Environment Scotland Listing
• Wikidata Q56617750

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

• 
  ENGLAND GUIDE TO POST WAR LISTED: A Guide to Post-war Listed Buildings
• 
  Gloucestershire 2: The Vale and The Forest of Dean: Vale and Forest of Dean Pt. 2 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Northumberland (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Old House Care and Repair
• 
  Listed Buildings: The Law and Practice of Historic Buildings, Ancient Monuments and Conservation Areas
• 
  Cambridgeshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)