Band Block, Dreghorn Barracks, Redford Road, Edinburgh

Band Block, Dreghorn Barracks, Redford Road, Edinburgh

This is a barracks complex designed by William A Ross between 1937 and 1939, comprising four original buildings: the Guard House (Building 1), Battalion Headquarters formerly Sergeants Mess (Building 2), Band Block (Building 3), and Barrack Block (Building 8). The buildings are single- and two-storey structures with irregular plans and multiple gables, designed in the Scottish vernacular style.

All buildings are harled with brown sandstone ashlar dressings. They feature base courses and eaves courses, long and short quoins, and chamfered window margins. All gables have ashlar-coped skews, corbelled skewputts, and gablehead slits, with stone finials to the principal gables. Tripartite windows appear on the Guard House and Battalion Headquarters, each with solid semicircular arches above the central light.

The Guard House is single-storey with an original block H-plan. Its principal elevation to the east has seven bays with advanced gables to the outer bays and tripartite windows at ground level. A five-bay flat-roofed verandah runs across the centre on square chamfered piers with plain capitals, containing six windows behind. The sides and rear have regular fenestration, and a large extension in the same style extends to the rear.

The Battalion Headquarters follows a roughly Z-plan, with a single-storey range to the south and a two-storey range to the north. The main entrance is in a slightly advanced ashlar bay to the north, featuring a two-leaf timber boarded door in a chamfered depressed-arch architrave with hoodmould and flanking windows. A slightly advanced gablet with a tripartite window projects to the left, with a lower range to its outer left. An advanced two-storey gable projects to the right, with a two-storey north range to the outer right. The principal elevation to the south comprises a five-window section at the centre flanked by tripartite windows under gablets, a four-window section to the outer left, and a gable-end with a gablehead stack to the outer right, joined to the rest of the elevation by a coped link wall. A depressed arch opening with three small windows appears to the right. Regular fenestration occurs on all other elevations.

The Band Block is two-storeys with a single-storey section to the east and an asymmetrical plan around a central courtyard. The principal south elevation comprises a two-storey, seven-bay block to the left, regularly fenestrated with gablet-headed dormers breaking the eaves. A blind bay occurs at the outer left, and an advanced gable in the penultimate bay to the left displays a round-arched window at first floor. A two-leaf timber boarded door sits to the right return in a stop-chamfered, elliptical-arched architrave with a bipartite window above. A recessed single-storey three-bay wing extends to the right, with an advanced porch in the re-entrant angle featuring a two-leaf timber panelled door in a stop-chamfered, elliptical-arched architrave. The east elevation has a stepped composition: an advanced gable to the left with a tripartite window; a recessed wing at right-angle to the right; and a flat-roofed outshot in the re-entrant angle with a door matching that of the south elevation. The north elevation displays a single-storey gable to the outer left with a canted window, a two-storey finialled gable to the right with a tripartite window at first floor, and a flat-roofed outshot at ground with a central timber boarded door in an elliptical-arched, stop-chamfered, hoodmoulded opening. A single-storey flat-roofed section runs to the centre with a courtyard entrance to the left. The courtyard elevation is regularly fenestrated with some gablet-headed dormers. The west elevation features an irregularly fenestrated four-bay wing to the left with an advanced asymmetrical stepped stack to the centre, and an advanced finialled gable to the right with tripartite windows at both floors.

The Barrack Block is two-storey and forms a 45-bay symmetrical block with a central fleche clock tower and weather vane. An ashlar cill-height base course runs along the building. The principal north elevation comprises a nine-bay centrepiece with a decorative pediment over the central window at ground and gables to the outer bays, each with a central two-leaf timber boarded door in a stop-chamfered, depressed-arch opening and canted windows corbelled out above. Two-bay advanced gables project to the outer left and right with an advanced shouldered chimney breast to the centre. Fifteen-bay wings extend between the outer gables and the centre, with smaller advanced gables at the fourth bay from each end displaying tripartite windows at both floors and semicircular relieving arches above central windows at first floor. Two-leaf timber boarded doors sit at the centre of the wings in slightly advanced, stop-chamfered, elliptical-arched openings. The rear elevation is regularly fenestrated with outside stairs to first floor and a modern outshot at the centre.