57 Albion Road, Edinburgh

57 Albion Road, Edinburgh

A 3-storey Queen Anne school designed by John A Carfrae in 1903, angled around an irregular site. The building is constructed in squared and coursed red sandstone with polished ashlar bands and dressings, featuring a mutuled cornice to the principal elevation.

The south-south-west (principal) elevation is the most elaborate. It comprises three bays with a gabled bay advanced at the centre featuring bipartite windows on each floor. The second-floor centre window is set within a Gibbsian surround with a round arch above and a roundel carving of Queen Margaret, flanked by obelisk finials at the skewblocks. To the left are two bays: the immediate bay has tripartite windows while the outer bay has single windows on each floor. The outer left includes a canted entrance tower with ashlar cladding at ground level, containing a Gibbsian round-arched door with narrow lights, an entablature with mutuled cornice above, and narrow single windows on each floor above. These terminate in a cornice and rooftop belvedere of arcaded timber with segmental arches and a piended roof topped by a decorative wrought-iron finial, which links into the main roof pitch. To the right of the central gabled bay are tripartite windows in the immediate bay and two single lights in the outer bay, with a canted porch in the re-entrant angle featuring a Gibbsian round-arched door, narrow light, mutuled cornice and unmoulded coped ashlar balustrade. Further right are three outer bays, with a gabled bay at the centre containing two bipartites that break the eaves at second-floor level, flanked by bays of bipartites with single windows and second-floor bipartites breaking the eaves in gabled dormerheads.

The west-south-west elevation comprises three bays with bipartite and single windows; the bay to the left is gabled with bipartites at ground level and a single window above.

The north-west (side entrance) elevation features a tall doorpiece with pilaster flanking, a segmental-arched fanlight, keystone and segmental pediment to the left. Above are three closely grouped narrow windows with a second-floor gabled section flanked by single windows.

The north-east (rear) elevation is asymmetrical and multi-fenestrated, comprising two gabled bays to the left and a broader gabled bay to the right with a round-arched bipartite at second-floor centre, flanked by two stair bays with bipartites and single windows on each floor. A modern addition extends to the outer left.

Throughout the building, windows are small-pane timber sash and case with simple radial fanlights. Doors are panelled two-leaf timber. The roof is covered in grey slates and features two decorative pagoda ridge ventilators in timber with louvred construction, swept aprons, ogeed caps and attenuated finials. Stylised gutter fixtures are present. Tall wallhead stacks stand on the returns of the principal gable with cornice and coping; a gablehead stack is at the rear.

The interior was not examined at the time of the survey.

An outbuilding stands by the gate on Albion Place, a 2-storey rectangular building of 7 bays constructed in squared and snecked red sandstone with bull-faced quoins. The entrance is in the otherwise blank west elevation, formed as an ashlar quasi-porch. The south elevation has regular fenestration; the north elevation has a stair window to the right of otherwise regular fenestration. All windows are now blocked. The roof has a half-piend to the west and a gable to the east, covered in grey slates.

Boundary walls of coursed, bull-faced red sandstone with semicircular coping enclose the sides and rear. Red sandstone ashlar gatepiers with moulded panels and deep flat cornices stand to the north and west-south-west (two pairs to the south-south-west). Wrought-iron two-leaf and single gates feature decorative detailing; plain railings sit on a dwarf wall.