Description

Robert Wilson, 1894. Large 3-storey symmetrical Scottish Renaissance Board School with janitor's house en suite, single storey outbuildings and play shelters; basement to rear; 3rd storey breaking parapet as attic; grey squared and snecked rubble, red ashlar dressings; rounded arrises; base course; string course above ground and 1st floor; 1st floor cill course; heavy eaves cornice to main block; ashlar mullions; dormerheads with coped triangular pediments; angle pilasters with stone ball finials. SE (FRONT) ELEVATION: 10-bay with 2-storey recessed entrance pavilions flanking. 4 central bays with bipartite windows to each floor and bay; dormer windwos above; inscription 'Bruntsfield Public School' above ground floor. Projecting 3-bay gables to outer right and left with angle pilasters and 2-storey advanced bay to centre with angle pilasters and tripartite windows to ground and 1st floor, apron to 1st floor window panelled with figurative roundel carved with educational theme, single windows in outer bays; in gablehads diamond-panelled balustrade with ball finials to tripartite corniced window flanked by pilasters, semi-circular pediment with heraldic carving; blind arrowslit window above; coped skews, apex and skewputts with ball finials. Recessed 2-bay entrance pavilions with angle pilasters; 2-leaf panelled doors with 3-pane rectangular fanlights and moulded margins to inner bays, pulvinated frieze dentilled cornice and scrolled plaque above inscribed 'BOYS' to right pavilion and 'GIRLS' to left, small bipartite windows above; slightly advanced 2-storey outer bays of ashlar with tripartite windows to each floor, 1st floor window breaking eaves with finialled bellcast roof; pedestal with decorative cast-iron lamp flanking each doorway.

NW (REAR) ELEVATION: 12-bay; projecting 4-bay outer pavilions with angle pilasters; blank bay towards centre; outer 3 bays gabled with single windows at basement and ground floor level (1 tripartite window at basement level, left projection with rear door right of centre): central window in gableheads corniced with pilasters and semi-circular pediment flanked by single windows; elevations of returns gabled with bipartite windwos flanked by single windows to each floor, blind arrowslit windows in gableheads (tall square corniced stalk to heating plant later raised in brick in place of outer right windows on return of left projection in re-entrant angle). Central bays with architraved bipartite windows at ground floor; bipartite windows with cornices, friezes, pilasters and heavy mullions and transoms at 1st floor; bracketted eaves cornice above. Single storey 3-bay flat-roofed projection in re-entrant angle of left projection with 2 bipartite windows to left.

SW ELEVATION: 10-bay; 3-bay projection to outer left with central bipartite windows flanked by single windows to each floor; 1st floor bipartite window framed by ball finialled pilasters and breaking eaves with shaped gable and water spout finial; centre 4 bays comprised of 2 linked gables with corniced apex stacks and angle pilasters, 2 bipartite windows per floor under each gable, stepped narrow tripartites in gableheads; return elevation of 2-storey entrance pavilion in bays right of centre with single windows to each floor and blind oculus in gablehead; gabled dormer with corniced apex stack and bipartite window to main block behind; recessed outer right bay with tripartite windows to ground floor and 1st floor and bipartite dormer above.

NE ELEVATION: mirror of SW elevation.

JANITOR'S HOUSE: 2-storey, 1-bay house with gabled elevation to Montpelier sited to NE corner of playground adjoining neighbouring tenement; front elevation with corniced tripartite window at ground floor and bipartite window with semi-circular pediment above at 1st floor, ball finialled gable; side elevation with 2-storey square entrance porch left of centre, healf-piend roof, 1st floor cill course, small bipartite windows to each floor; corniced doorway on return to right re-entrant angle; narrow single windows to bay to right of centre; rear elevation with unevenly arranged single windows.

OUTBUILDINGS AND SHELTERS: arranged around perimeter of ground to rear and sides; piend roofs; stone outbuildings detailed as main block; play shelters with slender cast-iron columns supporting open timber roofs. Multi-pane glazing in timber sash and case windows, mostly 12-pane; green slate roof, lead flashings; decorative cast-iron gutterheads and brackets; bellcote crowning main block with slate-hung base, timber birdcage bellcote and Sterling Town Hall - type leaded roof.

INTERIOR: not seen 1992.

BOUNDARY WALL AND RAILINGS: high coped rubble walls meeting side elevations at right angle (abutted by modern extensions), low rubble boundary wall and gatepiers to front with plain cast-iron railings.

Statement of Interest

Wilson succeeded Lambie Moffat and preceeded J Carfrae as architect to the School Board and thus designer of several Edinburgh schools.

External Links

• Historic Environment Scotland Listing
• Wikidata Q17809313

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

• 
  Devon (Pevsner Buildings of England)
• 
  Period Property Manual (New Ed)
• 
  Worcestershire Revised Edition (Buildings of England) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Somerset: South and West (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Cornwall (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  For the Record