Description

Alexander Black, 1853, with later alterations. 3-storey, 4-bay former school building with Jacobean detailing; arcaded ground floor overlaid by later shopfronts. Broached ashlar principal elevation, with stugged and squared side elevations. Base course; string course between ground and 1st floor at NW elevation; cill course at 1st and 2nd floors, returned and terminated at SE elevation; cornice and blocking course at 2nd floor, cornice returned and terminated at SE elevation.

NE (PRINCIPAL) ELEVATION: advanced 5-bay ground floor, with decorative pilasters, cyma recta cornice and blocking course, comprising pair of 2-bay shop fronts to centre and right, with decorative plate glass windows with small pane detail, recessed modern doors with blind fanlights; glazed returns; modern 2-leaf door and blind fanlight in bay to left. Regular fenestration to floors above; architraved windows at 1st and 2nd floors; windows at 1st floor with cornices surmounted by strapwork pediments. Crested gable centred at 2nd floor spanning 2 bays, with aediculed niche, flanked by gabletted finials with blind arrowslits, surmounted by crockets, at hopperheads; stylised acroteria to corners. Blind rectangular wall panel surmounted by decorative circular motif, centred at 1st floor.

NW ELEVATION: barred window with tooled dressing to right of centre at ground; recessed modern door to outer right at ground. 3 small blind square windows with pediments, evenly spaced to ground floor cornice. Regular fenestration to floors above, comprising blind architraved windows to all floors, 1st floor windows with cornices surmounted by strapwork pediments. Pair of small blind windows with pediments centred in gable.

SE ELEVATION: adjoining building, see separate listing (28-30 Broughton Street).

Predominantly 12-pane timber sash and case windows. Grey slate roofs. Cast-iron rainwater goods. Tripartite ashlar gablehead stacks on gabletted bases; coped, with polygonal cans.

INTERIORS: not seen, 1998.

Statement of Interest

Part of the Edinburgh New Town A Group. No 32 Broughton Street was built as a George Heriot's District School, which Black designed in the Jacobean style of the original George Heriot's School (William Wallace and William Ayton, 1628-60). The strapwork pediments echo those above the windows in the quadrangle of the older building, as does the arcaded ground floor, still visible behind the shop fronts overlaid by Henry F Kerr when the building became St Mary's Free Church Hall in 1889. The Salvation Army Hostel in the Cowgate, was formerly a Heriot's Trust School, also designed by Alexander Black, 1840, with similar strapwork pediments and arcaded ground floor.

External Links

• Historic Environment Scotland Listing
• Wikidata Q17811358

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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