Description

Front R & R Dickson, dated 1839; rebuilt and extended George Craig, 1891; swimming baths George Craig, dated 1896. 3-storey T-plan school with single storey front jamb and earlier Tudor-style front facade; matching swimming baths to NW. Cream sandstone, droved ashlar to front, coursed and squared rubble with droved dressings to rear buildings. Base course; chamfered reveals; four-centred-arched openings; 3-storey block with cill course at 1st floor, string course above 1st floor and ornamental cast-iron ventilation grilles; openings to front facade hoodmoulded.

NE (GREAT JUNCTION STREET) ELEVATION: gabled elevation with kneelers and apex finial rising from corbel shaft; 2 transomed tripartite windows at ground floor; elaborately sculpted niche with statue of Rev Dr Andrew Bell, crocketted canopy with blind tracery, 2 inscribed panels with cusped heads flanking telling history of school. Gable framed by square-plan crenellated towers with angle buttresses, arrowslit windows and clock faces. Doorways set in screen walls with steeped crenellated parapets and octagonal finials to either side. To outer right, single storey 3-bay link with swimming baths, bipartites flanking single window.

SW (REAR) BLOCK: T-plan with louvred and leaded central fleche; 4-bay single storey linking block with front facade. 3-storey block with 6-bay by 2-bay gabled centre jamb, bellcote to gablehead. Stroke of

T 2-bay to W, 4-bay to E, doorway in re-entrant angle and inscribed panels at 1st floor. Rear elevation with tall shouldered central wallhead stack linked to roof; 2-storey brick addition, stone front to Junction Place with gatepiers incorporated inscribed 'Public School?'Great Junction Street?.

SWIMMING BATHS AND STALK: single storey; rectangular-plan with gabled elevation detailed as above to Great Junction Street; transomed tripartite window to centre with dated apron, smaller single windows flanking. Tall tapering square-plan red brick stalk adjoining to SW with contrasting yellow brick quoins. Skylights to roof and kingpost roof with central pendants. Mostly 4- or 6-pane timber casements with top hoppers. Slate roofs; wallhead stack and brick stalk (see above). keel-moulded skewputts to 1890s work. Moulded eaves gutters and octagonal gutterheads.

INTERIOR: not seen 1993.

Low rubble wall with plain iron railings.

Statement of Interest

Dr Andrew Bell (1753-1832) was a Scottish clergyman, who developed a system of popular education whereby older and more advanced students supervised younger ones to counter the shortage of teachers, the so-called Madras system of education. On his death he left a large fortune to endow educational schemes in Scotland. His Leith school was taken over by Leith School Board and reconstructed as Great Junction Street Public School in 1892. The swimming baths are no 14, the school is no 15 and the nursery school, no 15A.

External Links

• Historic Environment Scotland Listing
• Wikidata Q17811626

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.

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