South Esk Primary School, South Esk Street, Montrose

South Esk Primary School, located on South Esk Street in Montrose, was designed by J Sim and built in 1891. This large, two-storey and attic school building features a shallow H-plan and exhibits Wrenaissance-Baroque architectural style. It has a central tower with three domes and pavilion roof, flanked by wings that end in gabled blocks. The exterior is constructed of sandstone ashlar, with some rendered sections at the rear. Notable architectural details include a ground floor cill course, a band course above the ground floor, an eaves cornice, and a parapet.

On the principal (north) elevation, the central tower is prominent, featuring paired windows separated by pilasters, banded rustication at the ground floor, and paired pilasters on the first and second floors. The third floor has keystoned round-arched windows. Above the parapet, there is a pilastered and pedimented tablet with a glazed oculus at the center. The three bays on either side of the tower include a central doorpiece at ground level, which has a pilastered round-arch doorway supported by attached columns and a segmental pediment. This doorway contains a six-panel door and a two-part fanlight with plate glass glazing. Flanking the doorpiece are three windows on the first floor. The slightly advanced end blocks feature pilastered tripartite windows at ground level, which are repeated as Venetian windows on the first floor, breaking the cornice with an oculus above in a round-arch recess in the gablehead. The gables have shaped apexes and stepped skews.

The west elevation has two bays that rise to a nepus gable, featuring a round-arch window and a scroll-shouldered capped stack. The east elevation mirrors the west elevation. The south elevation consists of a nine-bay central section arranged in the pattern of 2, 2, 1, 2, 2. There is a doorway at the center right connecting to a later single-storey flat-roofed extension. The gabled end block has tripartite windows at both the ground and first floors, with the first-floor window having a raised head at the center and a round-arch panel in the gablehead.

The school features 8, 12, and 15-pane timber sash and case windows, and the roofs are covered with grey slate, including coursed and shaped slates on the French pavilion roof, which is adorned with ornate cast-iron brattishing at the apex.

Inside, the classrooms have been modernized. The boundary walls consist of low coped stone walls to the north and west, with steel railings. There are capped square-section gatepiers to the north, west, and east. To the west, there is a rubble stone boundary wall, while the south side features a harled wall and outbuildings.