Tollcross Primary School, West Tollcross, Edinburgh, Edinburgh, Edinburgh

Entry Name: Tollcross Primary School, West Tollcross, Edinburgh

Listing Name: 117 Fountainbridge, Tollcross Primary School, Including Boundary Wall, Gatepiers and Railings

Listing Date: 5 March 1991

Category: B

Source: Historic Scotland

Source ID: 371060

Historic Scotland Designation Reference: LB30253

Building Class: Cultural

Also known as: Edinburgh, West Tollcross, Tollcross Primary School

ID on this website: 200371060

Location: Edinburgh

County: Edinburgh

Town: Edinburgh

Electoral Ward: City Centre

Traditional County: Midlothian

Tagged with: Primary school

Description

John A Carfrae, 1911. Long 2-storey, E-plan Queen Anne school (rear section now community centre) with later alterations and additions to sides and rear. Bull-faced coursed sandstone, squared and snecked at base and sides; cream polished ashlar dressings. Narrow cill course at ground floor level; eaves cornice. Tall banded corniced chimney stalks dividing bay groups.

S (PRINCIPAL) ELEVATION: symmetrical; 8-bay advanced piend-roofed centre section with finialled, scroll-pedimented ventilator/lantern; regularly fenestrated at 1st floor; each pair of windows flanked by tall banded chimney stalks; single storey projecting 8-bay entrance vestibule with splayed corners and large round-arched glazed openings (prominent keystones); glazed timber doors in 3rd bays from right and left; flanked by banded pilaster strips topped by pineapple finials. Outer bays arranged 1.3.3; narrow stone-mullioned 2-light windows to inner bays; penultimate groups of three windows flanked by tall banded chimney stalks with hood-corniced blank tablets at 1st floor level. Eaves cornice arched over broader, banded windows in 2nd and 5th bays from right and left.

N (REAR) ELEVATION: projecting 2-storey gabled bay to left; modern rendered extension to ground, 4-light canted window to 1st floor. 2-storey timber glazed extension to rear elevation of main block. Asymmetrical 3-storey 3-bay projecting block to centre with eaves cornice and blocking; stone-mullioned 2-light windows to ground and 1st floor, 3-light stone-mullioned oriels at 3rd (small leaded panes), in outer bays; broad corniced stacks at corners; entrance in W elevation of this block; timber panelled door in moulded surround with arched moulding over; windows in splayed corner at ground and 2nd, stone-mullioned bipartite and flanking single windows to 3rd floor. 5-bay 2-storey gabled projecting arm adjoins to right; 3 windows to ground and 2nd floors; banded corner pilasters; 2-storey timber glazed extension (1950's) to E elevation of projecting arm, W elevation echoes S elevation of main block (banded chimneys divide 5 bays, eaves cornice raised over 3 centre bays etc). Projecting 2-storey single bay ogee-roofed bay to outer right.

W ELEVATION: gabled end of main block to right; 2-storey timber glazed extensions to centre; 2-storey ogee-roofed 2-storey bay to left (modern windows).

E ELEVATION: gabled end of main block to left; single windows to right at ground and 1st floors; banded chimney at right. E elevation of eastern projecting arm to right; 3 single windows at ground and 1st floors to left, modern window and banded chimney to right.

Predominantly 24-pane glazing in timber sash and case windows. Grey slates; stone skews. Tall corniced and banded stone wallhead stacks with circular cans.

INTERIOR: not seen (1999).

GATEPIERS AND RAILINGS: cast-iron railings mounted on low stone coped boundary wall. Ashlar gatepiers with arched panels and dentilled corniced caps. Decorative cast-iron gates.

Statement of Interest

Built on the site of the former Municipal Slaughterhouse.

A typically imaginative design by Carfrae (whose style has been described as 'Board School Baroque'), making good use of a relatively small budget. Carfrae was Architect to the Edinburgh School Board.

The school stands on a site between Fountainbridge, West Tollcross and Ponton Street. The statutory address was previously given as West Tollcross and was amended in 2007.

External Links

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