Donaldson's Building of Edinburgh Academy (Former Donaldson's School For The Deaf), 54 Henderson Row, Edinburgh

Donaldson's Building of Edinburgh Academy (Former Donaldson's School For The Deaf), 54 Henderson Row, Edinburgh

This purpose-built residential school stands as a seven-bay, three-storey classical building with attic and raised basement, designed by James Gillespie Graham and constructed in 1823–24 for the Edinburgh Institution for the Deaf and Dumb. The structure is built of droved ashlar sandstone with matching dressings including banded stringcourses and an upper cill course. The main rectangular building acquired neo-Jacobean wings to east and west in 1893–94, connected by linking corridors. Located on the northern edge of Edinburgh's New Town, it now forms part of Edinburgh Academy and sits centrally within a large site set back from Henderson Row, surrounded by mature planting and various ancillary structures including a separately listed gate lodge and gate piers.

The Main Building

The principal southeast elevation is symmetrically composed with a three-bay advanced pediment at the centre breaking through the eaves. The raised central entrance is reached by stone steps with cast iron railings extending over the sunken basement. The doorway features a spoked fanlight above a bolection moulded, timber panelled door, flanked by paired Roman Doric pilasters supporting an entablature.

The northeast and southwest side elevations each comprise three bays, with tripartite windows to the outer bays and single openings at the centre. The lower floors are abutted by the late 19th-century wings. The rear northwest elevation spans eight bays in largely symmetrical arrangement, constructed of coursed rubble masonry without stringcourses or cill courses.

The shallow piended slate roof features a deep moulded eaves cornice and blocking course. A pair of canted dormers face the main southeast elevation, pedimented dormers appear on the east and west elevations, and four shed dormers punctuate the rear. A central ashlar chimneystack with moulded coping runs perpendicular to the ridge, flanked by similar ridgeline chimneystacks on either side, all topped with clay pots. A raised wallhead over the central portico apex has slated sides. Window openings generally have projecting margins and cills, with plain surrounds to the basement and rear elevation. The windows are predominantly six-over-six timber sash and case, with some three-over-six and four-over-four arrangements to sides and rear.

The 1893–94 Wings

A pair of largely symmetrical two-storey wings with attics adjoin the main building's side elevations. Built in neo-Jacobean style to designs by Charles S.S. Johnston in 1893, they are constructed of random coursed, rockfaced ashlar sandstone with ashlar rybats and red sandstone dressings. Each wing features a pedimented gable at the centre of the southeast elevation with tripartite windows and a circular tower at the inner corner, capped with an ogee roof and finial. The west wing includes a large doorpiece with scrolled pediment. The steeply pitched slated roofs carry tall chimneystacks with clay pots on the east block and an ogee-roofed ventilator stack at the centre of the west block. Gabled dormers light the attics, with pedimented wallhead dormers breaking the eaves on the west block. The east block dormers have timber fascia and overhanging eaves on timber brackets. Windows throughout are multi-paned timber sliding sashes, mainly six-over-two.

Flat-roofed two-storey over basement link blocks (1893) connect the late 19th-century wings to the main building's side elevations, each comprising nine bays. Various mid-to-late 20th-century additions adjoin the rear of these link blocks and the rear of the east and west wings. These mid-to-late 20th-century additions are all excluded from the listing.

Interior: Main Building

The interior of the main building, inspected in 2019, has been partially altered and now comprises a central corridor running east to west on each floor, with classrooms and associated schoolrooms on either side, terminated by staircases at each end. The interior is plainly detailed and substantially modernised throughout with plain ceilings and walls featuring surface-mounted services. Some early decorative features survive including splayed window openings with panelled reveals in some rooms, though these are very plain. The entrance hall retains a decorative cornice with Greek key motif and a door opening with spoked fanlight and side lights. The stairs have plain iron balusters with polished timber handrails.

Interior: East Wing

The east wing originally housed the headmaster's accommodation and sick rooms. Now used as offices and meeting rooms, the layout has remained largely unaltered and the domestic character is retained. Features include a dog-legged timber stair with turned balusters, mosaic flooring in the hallway, timber panelled window surrounds and doors, and decorative cornices and fireplaces in the principal first and ground floor rooms, with moulded cornices, dados, skirtings and picture rails in other rooms.

Interior: West Wing

The west wing, originally a gymnasium and swimming pool, contains large open plan rooms with some subdivision of the former gymnasium on the upper floor. The swimming pool has been filled in but some tiles survive on the lower part of the wall, now painted. There are no decorative features except for some timber boarded floors and timber panelling to the walls and window surrounds on the upper floor. The tower contains a spiral stone staircase with exposed timberwork to the roof turret.

Historical Development

The Edinburgh Institution for the Deaf and Dumb was founded in 1810 and initially occupied various premises within Edinburgh's Old Town. It provided deaf children from all social backgrounds across Scotland with board and education, though some attended solely as day pupils. The Institution was initially run by John Braidwood, grandson of Thomas Braidwood who established Britain's first school for deaf children, thought to be amongst the earliest in Europe. Robert Kinniburgh quickly succeeded Braidwood in 1811.

Between 1814 and 1821 pupil numbers increased from 36 to 51, necessitating larger premises. A two-acre site known as Distillery Park was feued from the Heriot Trust. The noted Scottish architect James Gillespie Graham designed the new building at no cost. The chosen site on Henderson Row in Stockbridge lay within an area of the New Town still under development, though many plots had been laid out. Construction costs were met through personal subscriptions, parish collections, an exhibition tour demonstrating the Institution's work, and sale of the previous premises in Chessels Court. Building work was completed in May 1824 at a cost of around £7,300, leaving the Institution £1,300 in debt and entirely dependent on charity, with 69 pupils and another 40 on the waiting list.

The building first appears on Kirkwood's plan of 1823, captioned as the 'New Deaf and Dumb Institution', shown as rectangular on plan and positioned at the centre of the site, bounded by the newly constructed Edinburgh Academy to the east and Gabriel's Road to the west. The associated gate lodge, boundary walls and gatepiers are thought to have been part of Gillespie Graham's original scheme and therefore contemporary with the main building. The lodge does not appear on historic maps until James Knox's map of 1834, though this absence may reflect map scale and detail rather than indicating it had not yet been constructed. Additional outbuildings are shown in the northwest corner of the site but were removed sometime before the 1905 Ordnance Survey map published in 1908.

The Ordnance Survey Town Plan of 1852, published 1853, provides detailed views of the grounds and building layout. A wall running east to west adjoined either side of the front elevation, dividing the site in two. The southern grounds contained public-facing gardens fronting Henderson Row, with a curved, tree-lined entrance drive leading from the main gates to the main building. The northern grounds were more functional with drying greens, an open area thought to have been a playground, and series of terraced walkways along the steep northern site edge. No substantial changes occurred to the building or site until the 1890s, as evidenced by the Ordnance Survey Large Scale Town Plan of 1876, published 1878–81.

An 1864 newspaper article describes the layout, educational methods and daily routine. It reported a large flower and vegetable garden and bleaching-green south of the main building with playgrounds to the rear. Interior spaces were described as admirably lighted with cheerful prospects from the windows. The first floor contained two interconnected classrooms, the directors' board room and other rooms including the headmaster's and matron's bedrooms. Upper floors housed dormitories divided in the centre, each with their own staircase, plus a small library, sewing room, bedrooms for parlour boarders, two sick rooms, and girls' lavatories and wardrobes on the attic level. The ground (basement) floor contained a large kitchen, laundry and small washing-house, a rather cheerless-looking dining-room, and a sitting room and lavatories and bath for the boys.

By the mid-19th century at least three other day schools for deaf children's education existed in Scotland. The largest, the Deaf and Dumb Day School, opened on St John Street in Edinburgh in 1837. This amalgamated with the Edinburgh Institution in 1846, with its 50 pupils moving to Henderson Row. In the 1840s plans were also made for opening another institution for the deaf in Scotland. Donaldson's Hospital, founded as a residential school for destitute boys and girls by Edinburgh publisher James Donaldson, was designed by William Henry Playfair with building work commencing in 1841. Though not specifically built for deaf children's education, by 1850 over half the accommodation was for the deaf.

By the 1890s classroom and residential accommodation at the Edinburgh Institution was becoming very limited. Additional east and west wings were built in 1893–94 to designs by Charles S.S. Johnston, first shown on the Large Scale Town Plan of 1894, published 1895. The west wing provided a swimming bath at ground floor, heating chamber in the basement and gymnasium above with associated lavatories. The east wing largely consisted of the headmaster's house with reception rooms and kitchens at ground floor and bedrooms at first floor. The north end of the ground floor housed sick rooms for non-infectious cases, with an additional single-storey offshoot containing scullery, larder and other ancillary rooms. These additions allowed three separate classrooms rather than everyone being taught in a single room. Much of the wall dividing the site grounds was removed as a result of these extensions, though a small section remained to the far west.

By 1910 further accommodation was required to provide more classrooms and better dining facilities. A new building was constructed north of the main building, shown on the 1931 Ordnance Survey map published in 1933, connected to the main school via a covered walkway constructed of timber and corrugated iron. Both the building and covered walkway were removed in the late 1950s or early 1960s. Ordnance Survey maps published in 1912 and 1931 also show that a series of ancillary buildings were constructed along the western boundary wall throughout the 20th century. These are all excluded from the listing.

The Institution was granted royal patronage in 1823 but only in 1911, on the accession of George V, was it allowed to incorporate the word 'Royal' into its title, becoming the 'Edinburgh Royal Institution for the Education of the Deaf and Dumb'.

In 1928 it was deemed that maintaining two separate schools for the deaf in Edinburgh could no longer be supported. In 1938 the Edinburgh Institution and Donaldson's Hospital amalgamated under the title 'Donaldson's School for the Deaf', with the sole purpose of providing efficient education for deaf children, and hearing children ceased to be permitted. The Henderson Row building became the school's junior department and the Donaldson's Hospital building at Wester Coates became the senior department, where a large new building expanded existing facilities. In 2008 the school vacated the Donaldson's Hospital building at Wester Coates and relocated to a new campus in Linlithgow. The Wester Coates buildings have since been converted into apartments.

In the late 1950s a single-storey block of classrooms was added northwest of the former Institution building on Henderson Row, connecting to the western extension wing. During this time lavatory extensions were added to the rear of the east and west connecting corridors (these extensions are excluded).

In 1977 the Donaldson's site was acquired by the neighbouring Edinburgh Academy. The deaf children relocated to the Wester Coates site and the two adjoining Henderson Row campuses were amalgamated. The building was subsequently renamed 'The Donaldson's Building' and now houses the Rector's office and the English, Geography and Art Departments. The present Music Block building to the north, which connects the Donaldson's and Edinburgh Academy sites and is excluded from the listing, was built in the late 20th century.

The gate lodge, boundary walls and gatepiers are listed separately. The ancillary buildings and later extensions to the rear of the late 19th-century wings and link blocks are all excluded from the listing. In accordance with Section 1(4A) of the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) (Scotland) Act 1997, the following are excluded from the listing: gates, mid-20th-century extensions to rear of east and west wings, Music Block to rear of east wing, and various ancillary buildings along boundary wall west of the main building (except for the gate lodge, west and north boundary walls and gate piers which are listed separately). These structures are excluded as they are later additions and are not of special architectural or historic interest.