Clepington Primary School, Eliza Street, Dundee

Clepington Primary School, Eliza Street, Dundee

This Arts and Crafts Art Nouveau school was designed by William Gilliespie Lamond, draughtsman, for J H Langlands, School Board Architect, and completed in 1907. It pioneered technical and domestic education in the city.

The building is constructed over two storeys with basement and attic, arranged around a central hall-plan. The walls are of snecked hammer-dressed rubble with ashlar dressings.

The east elevation features a dominant central three-storey, two-bay gable with four-light mullioned and transomed windows, topped at the third storey with round-arched openings and Art Nouveau-decorated aprons. The gable bears an inscription in Jugendstil lettering with an apex open segmental pediment. At basement level, a janitor's house is fronted by ornate wrought-iron railings. Flanking the gable are two recessed five-storey towers with semi-circular canopied and consoled doors at ground floor, approached by railed steps. Cylindrical dome-capped piers stand to either side, with the right-hand pair carrying lamps. The towers feature three tiers of bipartite windows above, topped by oculi. An octagonal scrolled and dome-capped pagoda punctuates the roofline. End bays are gabled and set back, with curved ashlar janitor's bothies positioned in the ground floor and basement re-entrant angles.

The north elevation opens from two dome-capped gatepiers to a railed basement area. Twin cloakroom and stair towers with curvilinear parapets flank a central section. The left tower displays three tiers of five-light horizontal windows, whilst a canopied entrance is surmounted by four tiers of four-light horizontal windows, round-arched at the top. The central two-storey classroom range with basement has windows grouped in threes, with three large mullioned and transomed dormers featuring small pediments above. The western stair bay mirrors the eastern arrangement, with classroom windows arranged 1-2-1 to the right and two attic windows beneath the eaves.

The south elevation is similar in composition, with the western two bays occupied by the twin-gabled Housewifery Department, which features domestic-scaled single and bipartite windows and small wrought-iron balconies. A more recent toilet block has been appended to the eastern stair bay.

The west elevation has a central advanced two-bay gable with four-light mullioned and transomed windows, the second-floor opening round-arched. The gable terminates in a segmental apex. At ground floor, an air intake for the Plenum Heating System is now boarded over, with a swept lead roof and projecting eaves.

The roof is slated, piended at the north-west and pyramidal over the cloakrooms, with three main gables aligned east-west carrying tiled ridges and overhanging eaves. Six louvred dome-capped ventilators are distributed across the roofline, with wallhead stacks positioned in the west and east gables. Windows are top-hopper and casement with horizontal astragals throughout, except in the Housewifery Department, which retains sash and case windows with six and eight-pane upper sashes and two-pane lower sashes.

The interior is of exceptional quality. A central arcaded walled hall at ground floor runs the full height of the building, receiving borrowed light from the surrounding classrooms. Timber-balustraded mezzanines extend to east and west. The first floor features a similar arrangement with an oval light-well, whilst the second floor is enclosed by balustraded rails with original light fittings at intervals and surrounding display cases. The roof above the hall is supported on an elliptical arch-braced construction carried on substantial corbels, with concealed timber king posts. Timber pedimented doorpieces sit within arcaded glazed surrounds, retaining original door furniture. Dado panelling and slim cupboards, which house the ventilation ducts, line the interior walls.

The boundary comprises ashlar cylindrical dome-capped gatepiers and low walls with modern railings flanking the east entrance, with rubble-built boundary walls to the north, south and west.