5 New Street, Canongate, Edinburgh

Robert Wilson, 1900-1. 2-storey former school building with Queen Anne detailing, shaped gables and square-plan bellcote with columns supporting slated, swept roof and gilded cockerel weathervane. Coursed bull-faced sandstone with red sandstone dressings. Base course; eaves cornice. Long and short quoins; raised margins; tabbed surrounds. Built on sloping site, ground made up at N with coped, random coursed bull-faced sandstone retaining wall below playground level (iron railings over); windows to East Market Street containing series of offices and workshops.

E (NEW STREET) ELEVATION: asymmetrical; bays grouped 3:3:3. 3 bays to right: bipartite window in centre bay; gablet with apex stack and scrolled skewputts above; steps to 2-leaf timber panelled door in Gibbs surround with pulvinated frieze; small window above in corniced surround flanked by carved foliate scrolls. Stone-mullioned windows to centre bay; piend-roofed dormerhead with Venetian window breaking eaves above. Shaped dormerhead to centre window breaking eaves to left.

W (REAR) ELEVATION: mirrored (flat-coped dormerhead at right).

N (EAST MARKET STREET) ELEVATION: symmetrical, 9 bays. Slightly advanced gabled outer bays with Gibbs surrounds to 1st floor windows and keyed oculi above. Recessed linking 5-bay range: slightly advanced centre bay with corniced, pilastered bipartite bay (carved angels to ground floor cornice, fluted pilasters to 1st floor) and bell-cast roof breaking eaves; tall mullioned and transomed windows to stair wells in flanking bays.

S ELEVATION: symmetrical. Shaped gables to outer bays (circular panels in gables) with off-set windows. Piend-roofed and shaped dormerheads breaking eaves in 3rd bays from left and right.

Timber sash and case 12-pane glazing. Grey slate pitched roofs. Stone skews with scrolled skewputts. Corniced apex stacks with circular cans. Cast-iron downpipes with decorative hoppers.

INTERIOR: glazed white tiled entrance vestibule; central galleried hall with continuous glazed rooflight; arch-braced and tie-beamed timber supports with carved scroll hammer braces. Former classrooms off ground floor and off parquet-floored gallery at 1st floor; plain iron railings with timber banister; stairwells at N with white glazed tiles to dado and plain ochre-coloured border.

BOUNDARY WALLS AND GATEPIERS: gatepiers to New Street entrance with platform copes and rusticated bands; later overthrow. Plain iron railings to coped sanstone boundary wall.