Description

Alexander Paterson, 1899. 2-storey and attic asymmetrical Arts and Crafts house. Corniced windows to ground floor. Swept roofs with bracketed eaves; kneelered skews to gables. Squared and snecked pink Corncockle sandstone with red Locharbriggs dressings.

N (KINNEAR ROAD) ELEVATION: advanced crowstep-gabled bay to outer right with oriel window. Mullioned and transomed stair windows to right and left with leaded glass and carved panels above dated 1899; single storey polygonal flat-roofed extensions below. Timber-boarded door off-centre right with astraglled circular window and small-pane-glazed fanlight in roll-moulded surround with segmental pediment. Flat-roofed 3-storey bay to outer left with small bi- and tri-partite windows. Box dormer to attic.

S (REAR) ELEVATION: bowed bay to outer right with segmental-pedimented dormer to swept conical roof. Crowstep-gabled bay to left with Venetian window to gable and 2-storey canted bay below. Tripartite dormer to roof.

E AND W (SIDE) ELEVATIONS: modern linking blocks adjoining. Bowed bay to E with finialled semicircular roof.

INTERIOR: impressed decoration to hall and stair plaster (EA monogram, thistles and Homeric profile); original carved timber banisters and newel-posts to stairs. Several original timber chimneypieces. Original timber-panelled quadripartite doors to segmental arch in dining room.

BOUNDARY WALL AND GATEPOSTS: red sandstone rubble boundary wall with ashlar coping. Art Nouveau wrought iron gaeposts.

Predominantly small-pane glazing to upper sashes, plate glass to lower in timber sash and case windows; leaded glass to stair windows. Graded greenish slates. Corniced sandstone stacks with cylindrical cans.

Statement of Interest

Built as a boarding house for the Edinburgh Academy, Scott House (named after Sir Walter Scott, a former pupil of the school) is a mirrored pair with Jeffrey House (see separate listing). In 1896 Robert Mackenzie, headmaster of the Academy 1888-1901, had instigated the acquisition of the area of ground on the N edge of which the boarding houses were built, as a playing field (still known as 'New Field'). The move to build the boarding houses also came from Mackenzie, who formed The Edinburgh Academy Boarding House Company Ltd to raise the capital for their building. Previously boys had boarded in the masters' own houses. Each house was designed to have a house-master's wing, boys' accommodation ranging from dormitories sleeping seven to single bedrooms, a dining room, library, music room, sick-room and matron's room. In addition to their architectural merit the 3 boarding houses are interesting as examples of purpose-built private-school boarding houses, incorporating current ideas on health and hygiene. The average cubic air space assigned to each boy in the bedrooms was 'above 800 feet, which is the amount recommended by Dr Dukes of Rugby in his well-known book upon school hygiene.' 'Considerations of health and eye-sight determined the adoption of the electric light.'

External Links

• Historic Environment Scotland Listing
• Wikidata Q17802015

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

• 
  Surrey (The Buildings of England) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Sussex: West (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Hertfordshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  [(Bedfordshire, Huntingdon and Peterborough)] [By (author) Nikolaus Pevsner] published on (January, 1968)
• 
  Churches: An Architectural Guide (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Introductions)
• 
  Historic Environment Law: Planning, Listed Buildings, Monuments, Conservation Areas and Objects, Supplement 2014