York Street Nursery School, Aberdeen, Aberdeen, Aberdeen

Entry Name: York Street Nursery School, Aberdeen

Listing Name: 5 York Street, Cam House, (Former Nursery School), Including Boundary Wall and Railings

Listing Date: 24 June 1999

Category: C

Source: Historic Scotland

Source ID: 393515

Historic Scotland Designation Reference: LB46278

Building Class: Cultural

ID on this website: 200393515

Location: Aberdeen

County: Aberdeen

Town: Aberdeen

Electoral Ward: George St/Harbour

Traditional County: Aberdeenshire

Tagged with: School building

Description

Pirie & Clyne, dated 1881, with 1892 addition to rear. Single storey, gabled, former nursery school. Monumental 2-stage square-plan bell tower central gable to S (street elevation), with pyramidal roof. Squared, coursed granite to street elevation, other elevations Aberdeen-bond. Battered base course, some hoodmoulds, simple stone finials to apex of gables. Tripartite pointed-arched window openings to S.

Predominantly non-traditional uPVC lying-pane windows. Grey slate roof. Stone skews with simple gableted or blocked skewputts. Coped, shouldered ridge and wallhead stacks.

INTERIOR: (seen 2006). Predominantly altered. Some surviving cornicing and skirting boards.

BOUNDARY WALL AND RAILINGS: coped, coursed granite wall with simple ironwork railings; rubble and brick wall to E.

Statement of Interest

One of only two schools designed by Pirie & Clyne (the other being Crown Terrace School, also in Aberdeen). The school was built in 1881 to replace the earlier, by then overcrowded, Davidson's School. It served the children of the neighbourhood, including those of the nearby fishing village Footdee. The bold massing, oversized bell-tower and battered base are unusual features and suggest the influence of Alexander Thomson.

Pirie & Clyne (1881-1892) was a successful Aberdeen partnership. Their commissions were more usually domestic or ecclesiastical and the latter influence can clearly be seen in this building.

The school became a nursery school in 1942, and is now in commercial use (2006).

Reference from previous list description: Town Council of Aberdeen Minutes, 3 March 1881, 16 August 1886, 18 July 1892 (p257).

Changed from category B to C(S), 2007.

External Links

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