Old Schoolhouse, 36 North Deeside Road, Kincardine O'Neil

Old Schoolhouse, 36 North Deeside Road, Kincardine O'Neil

Dating from around 1860, this is a fine and little-altered 2-storey former schoolhouse with a 3-bay rectangular plan, featuring a centre timpany gable. The building is harled with ashlar quoin strips and margins, and moulded skewputts. It is accompanied by an adjoining single-storey reading room to the north-east.

The symmetrical principal elevation faces west, with bays grouped toward the centre and 1st floor openings positioned close to the eaves. The narrow centre bay contains a panelled timber door with a 2-part fanlight. Above this, a blind arrowslit pierces the timpany gable, which is flanked by cast iron downpipes with decorative rainwater hoppers. The windows throughout are timber sash and case with a 4-pane glazing pattern. The roof is covered in grey slates and fitted with coped harled stacks complete with a full complement of polygonal cans. The skews are ashlar-coped with moulded skewputts. The rear elevation to the east is largely blank, with the almost full-height wall of the reading room abutting the schoolhouse on the right.

The interior retains good decorative detail, including moulded cornices, timber fire surrounds with cast iron insets, and a curving staircase with plain ironwork railing, timber handrail, and a decoratively consoled arch.

The adjoining former Reading Room, known as the "Roomie", is a single-storey, 3-bay, gabled structure with an L-plan, slated and harled. Its entrance elevation to the east features an advanced canted bay to the south and a door on the right return. It is fitted with 4-pane timber sash and case glazing.

The property is bounded by roughly coursed rubble boundary walls with coped rubble copings and hoopwork gates.

Architectural and Historical Significance

The schoolhouse is a good example of a pre-1872 Education Act building. It forms part of a small group of educational structures within Kincardine O'Neil. The nearby former Morrice School, dated 1856, was an endowed female school. The Reading Room was originally part of a two-roomed boys school, with its southern room since demolished. These school buildings became redundant in 1895 following the opening of the new mixed Primary School.

Many rural schools—which often consisted of only a single room within a house—became obsolete following the 1872 Education Act, which made education compulsory and stimulated a nationwide programme of school building. The schoolhouse and reading room sit at the heart of Kincardine O'Neil and form an important part of the village's architectural and social heritage.

The boundary walls have been altered at the south-west angle to incorporate a granite water trough commemorating Queen Victoria's Jubilee in 1897. Close to the west boundary stands a fine rectangular-plan ashlar fountain with an ogee cap, dated 1858 and dedicated to St Erchan, who founded a monastic settlement at Kincardine O'Neil. Immediately to the south lies the 14th-century Church of Kincardine O'Neil, described in the Third Statistical Account as "one of the most interesting medieval buildings in the north-east of Scotland".

The listing was re-categorised in 2006 to reflect the group value of these educational buildings. The listing applies to the interior as well as exterior, as appropriate to the building type.