St Bernard's Education Centre, 21 Dean Park Street, Edinburgh

St Bernard's Education Centre, located at 21 Dean Park Street, Edinburgh, is a two-story school building constructed between 1874 and 1877, designed by John Chesser, with a later extension in 1887 by Robert Wilson. The building is of irregular plan and built in a Renaissance style. It is constructed from coursed cream sandstone with polished ashlar dressings.

The architecture incorporates a base course, dividing and eaves cornices, and a parapet with decorative coping details. Windows are architraved with decorative carvings to the pediments of ground floor windows. Buckle quoins are present, and square bartizans adorn each corner, topped with ogival lead roofs and finials.

The south (entrance) elevation is asymmetrical with six bays. A pedimented doorpiece marks the "Juveniles" entrance, featuring a round-arched doorway, decorative carvings, a two-leaf panelled door, plate glass fanlight, and a single window above. A gabled central bay is advanced, featuring bipartite windows on both floors, also with decorative pediments. Single windows are found on both floors to the outer left bay and in three bays to the right of the centre.

The west elevation, with four bays, features advanced gabled bays on the outer left and right sides, although the pediments to the first-floor windows have been removed. Trefoil-headed, louvred ventilators are set into the gableheads. Single windows are placed in the central bays.

The east elevation is organized over three stories and a basement, spanning eleven bays. Two gabled bays are recessed on the outer left, with a carved “Education” roundel in the gablehead. Three bays are advanced and gabled to the left of the centre, incorporating playsheds at basement level, single windows to the principal and first floors, and bipartite windows to the returns. A further bipartite window is set at the second floor level. A single-story range of workshops projects from the centre. Former playsheds are present at basement level, alongside single windows on each floor in the remaining bays.

The north (rear) elevation also has three stories and a basement. Advanced gabled bays are located on the outer left. The outer right features a two-story and basement, gabled three-bay section. A single-story porch, advanced at the centre, includes an "Infants" doorway on the right return, with two bays behind and above. An attic addition is also present.

The building incorporates twelve-pane sash and case windows. Grey slate roofs cover the structure, complemented by polygonal ridge and wallhead stacks, roll-headed cans, polygonal ventilators, and cast-iron rainwater goods.

The interior features separate staircases for boys and girls, alongside open braced timber roofs in the hall and an attic classroom, ribbed plaster vaults in a classroom, boarded dados, and ventilator units throughout the classrooms.

The cast-iron gatepiers are polygonal, and the iron gates are crowned with ball-finials. Matching railings complete the boundary. A two-story janitor's house, of near-rectangular plan, is located nearby. The west elevation of the janitor’s house has a pedimented doorpiece, a replacement door with letterbox fanlight, a single window above, and a three-light canted window in a gabled bay to the right, with a corresponding bipartite window above. The south elevation has single windows on both floors, with a pediment over the first-floor window and a shouldered wallhead stack. The north elevation displays an irregular distribution of windows, while the east elevation is blank. The janitor’s house is finished with a grey slate roof and moulded cans.