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Latitude: 57.1471 / 57°8'49"N
Longitude: -2.101 / 2°6'3"W
OS Eastings: 393985
OS Northings: 806250
OS Grid: NJ939062
Mapcode National: GBR SC1.4H
Mapcode Global: WH9QQ.PMQB
Plus Code: 9C9V4VWX+RH
Entry Name: The Town School, Little Belmont Street, Aberdeen
Listing Name: Little Belmont Street, Former Old Town's School
Listing Date: 12 January 1967
Category: A
Source: Historic Scotland
Source ID: 354528
Historic Scotland Designation Reference: LB20082
Building Class: Cultural
ID on this website: 200354528
Location: Aberdeen
County: Aberdeen
Town: Aberdeen
Electoral Ward: George St/Harbour
Traditional County: Aberdeenshire
Tagged with: Architectural structure
John Smith, 1840-41. Monumental, single storey, E-plan former school building in the late Greek Revival style. Pedimented, Greek-Doric tretrastyle central portico flanked by very advanced single bay pavilions. Grey granite ashlar with finely tooled dressings, pilastered at corners; wide band course, projecting cornice and coped blocking course above.
Squared, coursed rubble construction to remaining elevations; segmental-arch openings to W, pair of openings at eaves level to E with margined, multi-pane glazing pattern; piended, wallhead gable at 1st and 2nd bays to 2-storey, 6-bay rear elevation.
Multi-paned glazing to timber framed windows to principal (S) elevation. Grey slate; wallhead dormers to W elevation. Cast-iron rainwater goods. Later low ashlar boundary wall to S with regularly spaced pyramidal piers and railings.
INTERIOR: Altered to form open-plan bar. Some plaster work remains.
The former Old Town School, designed by celebrated architect John Smith, is an outstanding example of the then-fashionable 'Greek revival' style. Such formal Classicism was more commonly associated with Smith's foremost contemporary, Archibald Simpson and is unusual amid Smith's prolific output. The building makes successful use of its restrictive location on Little Belmont Road. Its imposing use of scale is heightened by being set back from the line of the street. It has been compared to the exemplarary Neo-Classical work of Karl Freidrich Schinkel in Berlin such as his 1816 'Neue Wache' guardhouse. There is also a strong Greek 'academy' tradition in Scottish education which dovetailed with the worldwide interest in 'pure' Greek architecture in the first half of the nineteenth century. The building has latterly been converted into a public house, with the rear of the building integrated into the Academy shopping and restaurant complex, 1998, by Percy Johnson-Marshall and Partners.
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