Eastern Primary School, 2 Whinny Brae, Broughty Ferry, Dundee

Eastern Primary School, 2 Whinny Brae, Broughty Ferry, Dundee

Designed by architect James H Langlands, with draughtsmen William Gillespie Lamond and James H Langlands junior, this Art-Nouveau school was completed in 1911. The building comprises single, two, three and five-storey sections with basement, arranged on a basically rectangular plan.

The structure is built in snecked bull-faced rubble with smooth long and short quoins and dressings, with brick lining and steel beams throughout. The roof is slate with terracotta ridge tiles and cast-iron rainwater goods. Windows are predominantly stone-mullioned timber casements with bipartite 6-pane design, all featuring rounded long and short margins. Additional elongated single and bipartite 6-pane metal top-hopper windows are used throughout. The roofline is characterized by crowstepped wallhead stacks and mannered segmental wallheads at the flat-roofed five-storey and stairwell blocks, with some skew gables with kneelers, piended roofs, and hemispherically capped louvred ventilators.

The west elevation features a two-storey, 16-bay classroom block at centre with a ventilator at the ridge. Slightly advanced staircase towers flank this central section, with two-leaf entrance doors featuring massive scrolled-consoled semi-circular hoods inscribed 'boys entrance' and 'girls entrance' respectively, flanked by ground-floor windows. Four single windows appear on each of the first, second and third floors, with a Diocletian window on the fourth floor, all with matching windows on left and right returns. Five-storey recessed bays occur at far left and right, each with ten closely grouped single windows at each floor. Steps and a door to the basement at left retain original capped railings.

The east elevation displays a slightly advanced three-storey block at centre with six bipartite windows at each floor, two breaking the eaves with segmental dormerheads. Three foliate-design rainwater hoppers dated 1912 and a ventilator at the ridge are notable features. Recessed two-storey four-window bays flank this central block, each with similar hoppers. A slightly advanced two-storey gable end at far left has single windows on the right and a segmental arched entrance porch at the re-entrant. A single-storey flat-roofed bay at far right is slightly advanced with four windows.

The south elevation features a slightly advanced five-storey block at left with two sets of widely spaced bipartite windows at each floor and a mannered wallhead with crowstepped wallhead stack and rainwater hopper as on the east elevation. A two-storey block set back at right has a basement window at the left re-entrant with original railings matching those on the west elevation, eight windows at ground and first-floor levels, a rainwater hopper, and a ventilator at the ridge.

The north elevation comprises a single-storey piend-roofed block with a door, nine windows and a ventilator at the ridge, abutting a gable end of the main block which has three windows on its west return. Painted brick walls set back at left feature three Diocletian windows at the re-entrant.

Perimeter walls and gates consist of a low coped rubble wall on the south and west with stell railings (not original). Ashlar entrance gateways on the west feature cast-iron gates and coped round-headed arches, inscribed 'boys' at left and 'girls' at right.

Single-storey partly open playsheds and lavatories on the east, though altered and extended, maintain styling compatible with the main building.

The interior retains most original features. An assembly hall on the east rises through two storeys. Most corridors and classrooms feature boarded dadoes. Shallow ceramic sinks are present in the boys' cloakrooms. A simple chimneypiece exists in the caretaker's flat. The former cookery room on the second floor (room 21) retains an original range inscribed 'Parkhouse, Dow's patent. G Stephen and Sons, Dundee'. The adjoining former laundry room contains a copper boiler inscribed 'Ewart's Radion, Ewart and Son, Euston Road, London NW'.