Janitor's House, Ancrum Road Public School, 45 Ancrum Road, Dundee

Ancrum Road Public School, located at 45 Ancrum Road in Dundee, was designed by James H Langlands with assistance from William Gillespie Lamond and built between 1905 and 1906. It is an enlargement and remodelling of a single-storey school originally constructed by David MacLaren in 1874. The school features a deep central-hall plan and is two storeys high, with four-storey stair and mezzanine towers on either side, showcasing a free style with Art Nouveau detailing. The exterior is constructed of snecked rubble with ashlar dressings.

The southeast elevation has six bays, with the end bays advanced and gabled, featuring tripartite windows. The first-floor windows are segmentally pedimented, and all windows are corniced, with cills and curvilinear aprons on the first floor. There is Jugendsil lettering above.

The flanks of the building are plain, with a four-window and two-bay design, and four-stage stair and mezzanine cloakroom towers. The doors are bold, semi-circular, canopied, and consoled, accompanied by stepped four-light horizontal windows. The east elevation features a curvilinear parapet with six-light dormer stacks. The projecting northern wings have south elevations that are almost blind, with ground floor doors, bipartite windows, and a string course marking the height of the original school. Art Nouveau railings are present at the air intakes of the plenum heating system. The rear is plain with 18 bays arranged in a 1-2-1 pattern, topped with piended slate roofs and two valleys running north-south behind the front block. There are four lead-clad, dome-capped, louvred ventilators with Art Nouveau wrought-iron finials, one at the front and three at the rear, along with top hopper windows featuring horizontal glazing bars.

Inside, the central hall is on two levels, with a glazed arcade providing borrowed light from the corridors. The first-floor hall has a collar beam roof, and original woodwork and tiles are present in the stairs and cloakrooms. Stained glass depicting ships and an ornate wrought-iron screen are featured at the stairs, along with some new fire doors.

The Janitor's House, built in 1874 and enlarged in 1905, is a two-storey structure of snecked rubble. It has a single bipartite bay facing the road, with a gabled porch set back to the left re-entrant angle. The first-floor bipartites break over the overhanging eaves, and there are two wallhead stacks. The roof is piended slate. Outside toilets are located at the rear, with separate facilities for girls and boys on either side of a wall dividing the playground. The interior features flat roofs with white glazed facing brick. Low rubble-built boundary walls with ashlar gatepiers from 1874 and modern railings complete the setting.