Caretaker's Lodge, Dalry Primary School, Dalry Road, Edinburgh

Caretaker's Lodge, Dalry Primary School, Dalry Road, Edinburgh

A symmetrical gabled two-storey primary school designed by George Beattie & Son in 1876–7, extended by Robert Wilson in 1880 and again in 1890, with further extensions by 1914. The building is constructed in squared and snecked bull-nosed sandstone with long and short ashlar dressings. Ground floor windows are single with timber mullions and tabbed margins, while first floor windows feature ashlar mullions to bipartite designs. Chamfered arrises run throughout, with a base course and moulded first floor cill course. First floor windows are positioned at eaves level, with ground floor windows proportionally taller. Finials crown the gables, and a central octagonal timber bellcote with slender slate spire and weathervane rises from the centre of the building.

The south-east elevation facing Dalry Road presents a symmetrical eleven-bay front with regular fenestration. The central gabled bay contains a tripartite window to both ground and first floor, the latter round-headed with a hoodmould. A figurative roundel depicting 'education' sits in the gablehead, flanked by string courses. Single-bay returns with bipartite windows at first floor flank this centre. Three bays on either side feature bipartite windows at first floor, some with gable heads. Recently truncated wallhead stacks with splayed bases occupy the re-entrant angles to the centre. The outer two-bay gabled wings project further forward, displaying timber bipartite windows at ground level and stone-mullioned windows at first floor, with blind oculi in the gableheads. Single-bay inner returns contain ground floor windows and gabled bipartite windows at first floor.

The north-east elevation on Cathcart Place comprises five bays. The second bay from the right features a segmental-headed doorway with a projecting overdoor and dentilled cornice supported by stylised consoles, originally the Girls Entrance, with double panelled doors. A small bipartite window above lights a corridor, with a single window at first floor. Flanking single bays contain bipartite first floor windows, the far right bay having a shorter ground floor window. The two left bays have gable-headed bipartite windows at first floor. The right corner is corbelled to square at first floor level.

The north-west (rear) elevation features at its centre a two-bay gabled end with bipartite windows at first floor. A single-storey play shed with a piended roof adjoins this section (added before 1914). A six-bay return elevation extends to the south-west. The outer right bay contains a door and fanlight with a bipartite window above and bipartite at first floor; the inner right bay is blank at ground but has a small bipartite window at overdoor level, these two bays originally housing a porch for the Infant Boys Entrance. Five further bays to the south-west have bipartites at first floor; the outer two are advanced and gabled, with a single-bay inner return displaying a gable-headed bipartite at first floor. A three-bay return to the north-east has a wallhead stack with splayed base to the third bay. A freestanding two-bay block with first floor bipartite windows displaced to the right has a gabled end elevation with the upper left bay bipartite and upper right bay blank. A blank return wall adjoins a recessed two-leaf panelled door (originally the Infant Girls Entrance) with a four-light rectangular fanlight and flanking window, with a pair of windows above lighting a corridor and a narrow bipartite at first floor. A two-bay block to the north-east, with bipartite windows in both bays, has a single-bay return to an outer recessed two-bay end elevation with a gable-head stack and an extra narrow window to the far right at first floor.

The south-west elevation on Springwell Place is near-symmetrical across seven bays. A central bay contains a door and window (as on the north-east elevation, originally the Boys Entrance) with a narrow window adjoining at left, and a gable-headed bipartite at first floor. Three bays to the left have a central gable-headed tripartite window (its centre light slightly higher) flanked by bipartites at first floor. Three bays to the right display a similar arrangement, with the left bay having a single window at first floor.

Throughout the building, windows are timber multi-pane sash and case designs, some with timber mullions. The roof is covered in grey slate with terracotta ridge tiles; most stacks have been rebuilt. Moulded ashlar skews and gablet skewputts finish the primary gables. Cast-iron moulded gutters and downpipes serve the drainage.

The boundary walls fronting Dalry Road and the primary side elevations consist of low snecked rubble with ashlar saddleback coping and modern mesh railing. The Cathcart Place entrance to the yard is flanked by stop-chamfered square piers with pyramidal caps, with a full-height snecked rubble wall featuring semi-circular stugged coping beyond. The Springwell Place boundary has a high wall enclosing the yard with gates simply inserted. Modern sheds have been built along the north-west end wall of the yard.

The Caretaker's Lodge, situated on Cathcart Place, is T-plan in layout, with the cross of the T incorporated within the Cathcart Place boundary wall and lit by a single window. Bipartite windows serve each remaining elevation, though that to the south-west is now a large single window. A porch occupies the south-east re-entrant angle, and a bathroom has been added to the north-west. The lodge has a piended roof and central stack.