Abbeyhill Primary School, Abbey Street, Edinburgh

Abbeyhill Primary School, built in 1880 and expanded in 1894, comprises two distinct building sections with a separate janitor’s house. The original school building, facing north, displays Gothic detailing, while the later addition to the south is plainer in design and includes an original swimming pool. A two-storey polygonal janitor’s house sits to the southwest.

The original 1880 building is constructed of squared and snecked stugged sandstone with polished dressings, laid out in five stepped sections. It features a cream sandstone facade with an advanced base course, a string course above the downpipes, and an eaves cornice. All openings have chamfered corners, with pointed arches to the ground floor openings on the north side and to the first-floor openings on the south. The north elevation includes a three-bay entrance block with a timber panelled door and plate glass fanlight, and a carved School Board roundel in the gable. A gabled section with triple lancet windows is also present. A single-story extension from the early 20th century partially obscures the ground floor on the right-hand side. The south elevation is three-storeys high, with a four-storey section on the far right. Playsheds are located on the ground floor of the two central blocks and are supported by cast-iron columns. Gable dormers break the eaves on the upper floor, and a corbelled bracket on a gable supports a bell gable.

The later 1894 block is built of red sandstone and features a three-storey design with two forward-facing finialled gables in the centre. It has bipartite windows to the left and a segmental-arched dormer head breaking the eaves on the second floor. The other elevations are similarly regular, with single dormers and tall chimneys.

The original building predominantly has six-pane timber sash and case windows, with grey slate roofing, stone skews with kneelered skewputts and polygonal stacks without cans. The later block has small-pane timber sash and case windows, graded grey slates, ashlar coped skews, corniced stacks with circular cans, and cast-iron downpipes.

The interior of the classrooms are plain, featuring simple moulded cornices and some boarded timber panelling. The swimming pool, located in the basement of the 1894 building, has a steel girder ceiling, white tiled dados, painted brickwork above, and fairly modern pool tiles, as well as modern tiles in an adjacent sunken shower area. Original changing cubicles are present in the southwest corner, with hooks and benches. The janitor’s house has a base course, string course, and eaves course, with a timber panelled door, regular fenestration, gablet-headed dormers, grey slates, tall shouldered stacks, and cast-iron downpipes. The site is enclosed by a random rubble boundary wall with coped ashlar gate piers, plain cast-iron gates and railings.