Royal High Primary School, Northfield Broadway, Edinburgh

Royal High Primary School, Northfield Broadway, Edinburgh

Designed by G Reid and J Smith Forbes and built between 1929 and 1931, this is a substantial classical primary school of Grade B architectural importance. The main building follows a quadrangular plan, single storey with two storeys to the south. A later, plainer two-storey addition of three bays by six bays was added to the south-east.

The principal north elevation features a distyle segmental portico with fluted Roman Doric columns and a finialled, pedimented clock tower dated 1931. The walls throughout are pea-harled brick with stone and artificial stone dressings, including a decorative base course with vents and an eaves course. Architrave mouldings with panelled aprons enhance some windows of the main elevations.

The north elevation comprises 18 bays. An advanced central piend-roofed section contains the portico flanked by small windows, with bowed stone steps leading to cast-iron gates and a border-glazed door featuring circular glazing to the fanlights. The portico displays a bracketed frieze, fluted cornice, and acorn finials to its entablature. Behind the portico is a corniced, bracketed tablet inscribed SCHOLA REGIA EDIMBURGENSIS with the Edinburgh crest and acroteria. The lower six-bay flanking sections have two-leaf timber panelled doors to penultimate bays with X-glazed fanlights and moulded architraves featuring bracketed, fluted cornices and acroteria.

The east elevation spans five bays, with a string course and blocking course. Windows are round-arched with projecting, fluted cills. Roundels between windows have alternately plain and fluted panels above in the blocking course.

The south elevation is a roughly symmetrical range of 22 bays, progressively advanced towards the centre. A 12-bay advanced section at the centre has a parapet and fluted aprons to the first-floor windows of six central bays, flanked by lower three-bay sections. The blocking course contains fluted panels above the central windows, whilst outer bays feature a band cill-course. Both floors are regularly fenestrated. Arched doorways with very large scrolled keystones appear in the flat-roofed penultimate bays, each with two-leaf timber panelled doors and fanlights.

An additional piend-roofed wing extends to the east.

The courtyard is enclosed by a single-storey advanced corridor that originally was partially open but is now walled in with large horizontal windows. The south side rises to two storeys, with the second storey raised above the first on piers. A base course and eaves course define the corridor and classrooms behind. Projecting piers occur to each bay. Border-glazed clerestorey windows sit above corridors on the south, east, and west ranges. A pair of two-leaf glazed doors occupies the centre of the south range.

The south elevation of the north range features an advanced flat-roofed three-bay section at its centre with round-arched openings and a two-leaf border-glazed door with fanlight in a moulded architrave with decorative scrolled keystone.

External elevations are predominantly fitted with 12-pane sash and case windows, whilst the courtyard has 8-pane glazing in quadripartite windows. Piend roofs are covered in red tiles. Corniced ventilators sit to the ridge of the east and west ranges, and shouldered stacks with fluted tops and cylindrical cans crown the ridge of the north range.

The entrance hall is reached through a vestibule via a border-glazed two-leaf inner door with circular-glazed fanlight. Timber fluted half-columns separate recessed arched bays, with moulded plaster architrave and cornice. The frieze bears the motto MUSIS RESPUBLICA FLORET (Let The Arts Flourish In A Civilised State) in several languages. A large globe electrolier is suspended on multiple wires from a central plaster roundel. The floor is white marble with black edging.

The Assembly Hall/Gym features timber panelling to the dado and timber carved architrave frames to all doors. A semicircular stage to the north wall is fronted by columns and half-columns, with a similar arrangement to the south.

The Dining Room follows the same arrangement as the Assembly Hall but without a stage, instead having a timber servery hatch between doors to the north wall.

The Janitor's House is a five-bay single-storey structure with an attic, topped by a nepus gable to the centre. It is harled with a base course, cornice, and blocking course. A timber door with glazed inner door and fanlight featuring circular glazing sits at the centre, approached by semi-circular steps and sheltered by a semi-circular porch supported on brackets. A piended roof with gable-end stacks and cylindrical cans covers the structure. Quadrant walls enclose the garden.

The Playshed comprises five bays supported on channelled piers, with square single-bay pavilions at each end. It is harled with ashlar dressings, a base course, and a band course. The pavilion roofs are surmounted by finials and have a blocking course.

The boundary wall and railings to the east consist of a low, coped ashlar wall surmounted by cast-iron railings, with tall corniced piers at intervals. Decorative wrought-iron gates and gate-posts sit within massive ashlar piers with scrolled tops. Plain cast-iron railings fence the south and west boundaries.

The interior retains many original fixtures, including doors with stencilled lettering.