Dr Bell's Drama Centre, 101 Great Junction Street, Edinburgh

The Stanwell Nursery School, located at 101 Great Junction Street, Edinburgh, was originally designed by R & R Dickson in 1839. It was significantly rebuilt and extended by George Craig in 1891, with the addition of swimming baths designed by him in 1896. The building is a three-storey, T-shaped school with a single-storey front projection and an earlier Tudor-style facade, complemented by matching swimming baths to the northwest.

The building is constructed of cream sandstone, with droved ashlar to the front elevation and coursed, squared rubble with droved dressings to the rear. Features include a base course, chamfered reveals, four-centred-arched openings, a cill course at the first floor, and a string course above the first floor, along with ornamental cast-iron ventilation grilles. Openings to the front facade have hoodmoulds.

The northeast (Great Junction Street) elevation is gabled, featuring kneelers and an apex finial rising from a corbel shaft. It has two transomed tripartite windows at ground floor level, and an elaborately sculpted niche containing a statue of Rev Dr Andrew Bell, sheltered by a crocketed canopy with blind tracery. Two inscribed panels with cusped heads flank the niche, detailing the school’s history. The gable is framed by square-plan crenellated towers with angle buttresses, arrowslit windows, and clock faces. Doorways are set within screen walls with stepped crenellated parapets and octagonal finials. A single-storey, three-bay link connects to the swimming baths, with bipartites flanking a single window.

The southwest (rear) block is T-plan, with a louvred and leaded central fleche. A single-storey, four-bay linking block connects to the front facade. The three-storey block has a six-bay by two-bay gabled centre projection, with a bellcote to the gablehead. The rear elevation includes a tall, shouldered central wallhead stack linked to the roof and a two-storey brick addition with a stone front to Junction Place, and incorporates gatepiers inscribed 'Public School? Great Junction Street?'.

The swimming baths are single-storey and rectangular, with a gabled elevation mirroring that of the Great Junction Street facade. They feature a transomed tripartite window to the centre with a dated apron and smaller single windows flanking. A tall, tapering, square-plan red brick stalk, with contrasting yellow brick quoins, adjoins the baths to the southwest. The roof features skylights and a kingpost roof with central pendants.

The interior was not inspected in 1993.

The property is enclosed by a low rubble wall with plain iron railings. The 1890s work features keel-moulded skewputts. Most windows are timber casements with four- or six-pane glazing and top hoppers. The roofs are slate, with a wallhead stack and the red brick stalk.