Aberhill Primary School, School Street, Methil, Buckhaven, Methil and Wemyss Villages, Fife

Entry Name: Aberhill Primary School, School Street, Methil

Listing Name: Methil, School Street, Aberhill Primary School with Ancillary Structures, Boundary Walls, Gatepiers and Gates

Listing Date: 17 March 1999

Category: B

Source: Historic Scotland

Source ID: 393233

Historic Scotland Designation Reference: LB46076

Building Class: Cultural

Also known as: Methil, School Street, Aberhill Primary School

ID on this website: 200393233

Location: Buckhaven and Methil

County: Fife

Town: Buckhaven And Methil

Electoral Ward: Buckhaven, Methil and Wemyss Villages

Traditional County: Fife

Tagged with: School building

Description

Probably G C Campbell, 1912; sympathetic dining hall extension 1996 by local authority architect. Highly innovative cruciform-plan, single storey, piend-roofed school. Painted harl with red sandstone ashlar doorcases and stone cills. Eaves course. Round-headed windows, voussoirs, keystones; stone and timber mullions, and chamfered arrises. All pedimented doors decoratively-astragalled, part-glazed, 2-leaf timber with multi-pane fanlights.

SW (PRINCIPAL) ELEVATION: 9 symmetrical bays. 3-bay doorcase to centre with semicircular steps up to deep-set door in pedimented and keystoned surround below round-headed window with moulded apron in flat-roofed tower; angled, canted lower flanking bays (also flat roofed) that to right with 2-part window, that to left with door (converted window?) flanked by windows. Each bay of flanking arms with tall bipartite window breaking eaves into pedimented dormer head with blind arrowslit, and flanking windows.

S (ENTRANCE) ELEVATION: almost full-width modern flat-roofed extension masking lower part of pedimented keystoned doorcase breaking eaves into high segmental-headed pediment.

SE ELEVATION: 7 symmetrical bays. Centre bay with bipartite window and closely disposed flanking windows breaking eaves into segmental-headed pediment with blind arrow slit; flanking arms as SW.

E ELEVATION: bay to right with original pedimented sandstone doorcase breaking eaves into segmental-pediment with blind arrow slit, extension to left with segmentally-headed window flanked by bipartite windows and further door to outer left.

NE ELEVATION: centre 3 bays as above but reversed; bays to left arm as above; that immediately to right with pedimented centre bipartite window, window to right and door to left, centre and outer right bays projecting into new glass-topped pyramidally-roofed hall.

N ELEVATION: doorway as above (E) to centre.

NW ELEVATION: 7 symmetrical bays. Centre bay with canted 4-part window breaking eaves into segmental-headed pediment with blind arrow slit; flanking arms as SW but inner bays with bipartite windows flanking those at centre.

W ELEVATION: as N elevation.

Small-pane glazing patterns in top-opening timber windows, some modern replacements. Grey slates with terracotta ridge tiles. Plain bargeboarding, overhanging eaves and cast-iron downpipes with decorative rainwater hoppers.

INTERIOR: boarded timber dadoes; part-glazed timber doors with multi-pane fanlights. Entrance hall with polychromatic ceramic tiled dado with Art Nouveau inserts; timber dog-leg staircase, balusters carved with Art Nouveau detail. Central domed polygonal hall with pedimented door to SW, carved pilasters, mutuled cornice and ribbed dome with semicircular lights.

ANCILLARY STRUCTURES, BOUNDARY WALLS, GATEPIERS AND GATES: play shelters supported on 3 cast-iron columns to SW and NE. Coped and harled boundary walls; domed coping to square-section red sandstone ashlar gatepiers with decorative cast-iron gates.

Statement of Interest

G C Campbell is suggested as the probable author because he was architect of Kinglassie Primary School (listed category 'B') which followed the fashionable suntrap plan in butterfly form; Aberhill takes this design one step further with the cruciform plan. Aberhill was opened as a junior school in 1912.

External Links

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