4 Lochend Road (Former Leith Academy Annexe), Edinburgh

4 Lochend Road, Edinburgh — Former Leith Academy Annexe

A 2-storey and attic Collegiate Gothic school building designed by George Craig and built between 1885 and 1887. The main building is roughly H-plan with 16 bays, constructed in bull-faced squared and necked masonry with red ashlar dressings. A base course, cill course at ground and first floor, and eaves cornice run across the building. Windows are pointed and arcaded at first floor and attic level, with roll-moulded window surrounds. Ventilator grille openings sit beneath the windows.

The east elevation facing Lochend Road is symmetrical across 16 bays on falling ground, with a prominent four-bay centrepiece flanked by pinnacled octagonal shafts. A large semicircular tympanum above the centre four first floor windows bears the inscription 'LOCHEND ROAD SCHOOL' with a figurative education roundel above it. A string course and central blind oculus occupy the gablehead. The bays flanking the centre have buttresses at ground floor — three on each side — with large rectangular carved panels and pointed tympana above blind traceried oculuses. At first floor, the right-hand centre bay window is blind, as are the second bay from centre on the left and three outer bays; three buttressed gabled ashlar dormer windows flank the centre on each side.

The south elevation is symmetrical across 15 bays, with the outer four bays on each side gabled and advanced. The centre seven bays are plain with three buttressed dormer windows identical to those on the east. The outer bays contain four rectangular windows to ground floor, with the inner doors on each side adapted from windows. A string course divides the gablehead from the first floor, with four small round-headed windows and a quatrefoil above in the gablehead.

The north elevation features an advanced four-bay gable to the left, with the outer two windows at first floor blind and a bipartite plate traceried window in the gablehead. To the right is an eight-bay block. A re-entrant angle contains a broad single-bay gabled block with a small two-bay turret directly above, topped by a slate roof and tall chimney stack. To the right are two irregularly fenestrated bays. The eight-bay block has windows matching the rest of the building but without cill courses, with centre four bays having dormers.

The west elevation has a three-bay block in the centre with three windows at ground and first floor. A large slightly advanced return of a gable-ended bay to the west has two windows to the far left. An advanced gabled bay to the left has two small round-headed windows and an oculus in the gablehead. A large modern brick chimney has been added by the re-entrant angle.

All large windows are timber sash and case with six panes and hoppers. Dormer and attic windows are sash and case. The roof is slate with decorative red terracotta ridges.

Wrought-iron railings over a dwarf wall line the Lochend Road side of the north playground, with matching two-leaf wrought-iron gates and pedestrian gates to the Janitor's House. Railings and wall to the south playground have been removed, replaced by a dwarf wall across the front. Ashlar arch pedestrian entrances flank the school, buttressed with pitched stone capping and scrolled terminal finials, with decorative wrought-iron gates within.

The Janitor's House stands to the north of the school in L-plan. Its east elevation has a gabled two-bay block to the left with the date 1886 in the gablehead and a stack at the apex, followed by a recessed single-bay block with a pointed entrance door and single window above. The south elevation has a single advanced gabled bay to the left with one off-centre window, with a section to the right containing one ground floor window to the far right. The west elevation is three-bay with a flat-roofed 1950s extension; only one original ground floor window is visible. The north elevation has two symmetrically placed first floor windows and is otherwise blank.

A play shelter in the playground to the north of the main building has a pitched slated roof supported on cast-iron columns, with an open connecting walkway leading to a squared and snecked sandstone ashlar play shelter also with pitched and slated roof.