Glebe Park Centre, Glebe Park, Kirkcaldy

Glebe Park Centre, Kirkcaldy

A Gothic-detailed former school designed by John Milne in 1876, with extensions added in 1889 and 1895 by James Gillespie & Scott. The building is constructed of squared and snecked rubble with polished and droved ashlar dressings. It features a distinctive 3-stage entrance and bell campanile, and is distinguished by segmental-headed doors, quatrefoil openings, 2-stage battered buttresses and machicolations. Hoodmoulds with label-stops, stop-chamfered and moulded arrises, and stone mullions are employed throughout. The tower displays pointed-arch louvered openings with voussoirs and a decorative cornice to the polygonal form.

The principal east elevation presents 7 asymmetrical bays. A blocked tripartite window occupies the centre, with bipartite windows in the flanking bays breaking the eaves into dormer gablets with decorative elements on their tympanums. The 3-stage tower rises in the penultimate bay to the right, whilst a hoodmoulded bipartite window sits in the gabled bay at the outer right. Two gabled bays project to the outer left, the penultimate one being lower and featuring a small moulded bipartite window (blocked) with a buttress at its right angle, and a further blocked window and door on the return to the right. Two hoodmoulded bipartite windows occupy the outer left.

The north-east tower's first stage is engaged with a 2-leaf timber door and plate glass fanlight below a moulded panel inscribed "BOYS" and a stepped course. The second stage displays a trefoil-headed gunloop. The third stage contains a louvered tripartite opening on each elevation beneath decoratively corbelled eaves rising to a spire with decorative wrought-iron finial.

The south elevation contains 2 bays to the right of centre with bipartite windows breaking the eaves into dormer gablets featuring tiny gunloops on their tympanums. The bay at the outer right is corbelled into a steeply pitched dormer gablet also breaking the eaves. An advanced gable to the outer left holds 2 hoodmoulded bipartite windows, with a lower harled gable on the return to the right and a finialled roundel with 3 blocked windows projecting beyond to the right. A polygonal tower in the re-entrant angle contains a 2-leaf timber door and plate glass fanlight in its rounded east face below a moulded panel inscribed "INFANTS", corbelled to square above with a steeply pitched chimney gablet over the eaves line.

The west elevation displays 6 asymmetrical bays. Two bipartite windows with dormer-headed gablets breaking the eaves appear in the bay to the left of centre, whilst a slightly advanced finialled gable with a hoodmoulded bipartite window stands at the outer left. A low flat-roofed extension occupies the centre bay. A hoodmoulded bipartite window in an advanced finialled gable sits to the right, with 3 small windows beyond. A small triangular louvered vent sits close to the ridge at the outer right. All windows to the left of centre are blocked.

The north elevation comprises 4 bays. A window to the left of centre and an outer left bay with a hoodmoulded bipartite window break the eaves into a dormer gablet with a small quatrefoil on the tympanum and a shouldered stack piercing the gablet to the left, with a buttress at the outer angle. A hoodmoulded bipartite window breaking the eaves into a small finialled dormer gablet with a tiny gunloop on the tympanum sits to the right of centre, with a further window beyond to the right. All windows are blocked.

The roof is covered in grey slates, with fish-scale slating to both towers. Coped ashlar lozenge stacks and ashlar-coped skews are employed. Cast-iron downpipes with decorative rainwater hoppers complete the detailing. Windows throughout retain plate glass glazing in timber frames.