Boroughmuir School, 22-24 Warrender Park Crescent, Edinburgh

Boroughmuir School, designed by John A Carfrae in 1902, is a substantial 3-storey building with attic storey, arranged in a T-plan and built in the Free Renaissance style. It occupies a prominent position overlooking Bruntsfield Links, with its basement level situated below the Links themselves.

The building is constructed of bull-faced orange sandstone with cream ashlar dressings, the ground floor facing Bruntsfield Links being entirely ashlar. The roofscape is dominated by steeply pitched roofs punctuated by finialled louvred lanterns and ventilators to the central block and flanking wings. Decorative truncated obelisks sit on channelled pilaster strips at the corners, topped with dentilled cornices. Stone cill courses mark the 1st and 2nd floor levels, and an eaves cornice runs around the building.

The Bruntsfield Links elevation (north-facing) is the most elaborate, comprising 23 bays arranged symmetrically in a 3-1-1-1-1-1-3 pattern on either side of a central bay. Horizontal ashlar channelling articulates the 1st and 2nd floor levels. The outer left and right sections feature slightly advanced gabled blocks; the ground floor contains 3 key-blocked segmental-headed windows, with 3 windows above at the 1st floor and a larger key-blocked window at the 2nd floor supported by elongated brackets and flanked by enriched Ionic columns with segmental pediments. The next bays inward contain key-blocked round-arched windows at ground floor, flanked by smaller rectangular windows, with 3 windows to the 1st floor and a segmental-pedimented dormerhead breaking the eaves at the 2nd floor. Recessed bays flank a 3-storey canted bay containing stone-mullioned bipartite windows at each floor and small finialled dormers to the attic; the canted bay itself has stone-mullioned windows with hexagonal windows to its outer facets at 2nd floor level and an ashlar balcony across the flanking bays. The slightly advanced 7-bay centre block features segmental-headed key-blocked windows to the outer 6 bays at ground floor, with 7 windows distributed across the 1st and 2nd floors; windows in the penultimate bays to left and right are flanked by enriched Ionic columns with segmental pediments breaking the eaves and supported by elongated brackets that function as pedestals at the 2nd floor. Sculpted roundels decorate the pediment and sit beneath the 2nd floor windows; side windows at the 1st floor are flanked by Ionic pilasters.

The east elevation features ashlar to the ground floor of the main block on the right, with horizontal ashlar channelling at the 1st floor. A corniced door in a relieving arch is offset to the left, with 2 windows offset to the left at the 1st floor. A central window with segmental pediment breaking the eaves at the 2nd floor is flanked by 2 smaller windows. A tripartite window lights the east and west gable ends of the taller central main block. The east elevation of the T-wing displays 3 polychrome segmental-headed windows at ground floor to the left and 3 large and 1 small window to the right. The 2nd floor is regularly fenestrated (with no window in the outer left bay), featuring larger windows with segmental-pedimented dormers breaking the eaves that alternate with smaller windows.

The south elevation of the main block is almost symmetrical, with a moulded cill band at the 1st and 2nd floors. Slightly advanced gabled outer blocks frame the composition; the right block is ashlar to the ground floor with 2 segmental-headed windows, 3 windows to the 1st floor, and a key-blocked oeil-de-boeuf window in the gable, while the left block is bull-faced orange sandstone with 1 polychrome segmental-arched window offset to the right at ground floor and single windows offset to the right at the 1st and 2nd floors. Entrances are positioned in the outer bays of 3-storey flat-roofed advanced blocks that clasp the T-wing; these feature modern glazed doors with segmental-arched fanlights set in key-blocked ashlar doorpieces with broken-base consoled segmental pediments. Segmental-headed windows occupy the inner bays at ground floor, with single windows at the 1st floor and bipartites at the 2nd. Flat-roofed blocks project beyond the entrance bays (single storey to the left, 3-storey to the right) with small bipartite windows to the ground floor and small bipartites set in ashlar strips to the 1st and 2nd floors of the right bay. Four intervening bays (three to the right) are recessed with ashlar at the 2nd floor, polychrome segmental-headed windows at ground floor, single windows at the 1st floor, and bipartites at the 2nd floor.

The south elevation of the T-wing comprises paired gabled blocks with a window to the right at ground floor. A 4-bay extension adjoins the ground floor of the left block, containing a door in the centre bay and a window with pedimented gable breaking the eaves above; the 1st floor is regularly fenestrated, and a tall window with segmental pediment flanked by smaller windows lights the 2nd floor of each gabled block.

The west elevation of the T-wing is adjoined by a lower 2-storey mansard-roofed wing featuring an ashlar canted bay to the ground floor and a Serliana (three-arched classical window) to the 1st floor.

Windows throughout are predominantly 18-pane timber sash and case. The roofs are laid with greenish slates and feature stone skews. Cast-iron down pipes with decorative hoppers drain the roofscape. Tall corniced orange bull-faced sandstone chimneys (some rebuilt) with circular cans at wallheads and ridges punctuate the roofline.

The boundary is defined by a low wall with cast-iron railings and decorative cast-iron gates flanked by tall ashlar gatepiers with decorative caps.