St Mary's Canvas Works, High Street, Kirkcaldy

St Mary's Canvas Works is a complex of buildings on High Street, Kirkcaldy, dating from 1822, with significant alterations in 1864 and 1914. Originally a combination of a canvas works, a linoleum factory, and a small chapel, it has been converted into an educational complex.

The Union Chapel facade, dated 1822, is a single-storey, four-bay structure built on a sloping ground, adjacent to a bridge to the east. It is constructed of sandstone ashlar and features pinnacled buttresses, pointed-arch openings with hoodmoulds, chamfered arrises, and stone mullions.

The southern (High Street) elevation displays a broad door below a stepped wallhead with flanking pinnacles in the bay to the right of the centre. Bipartite windows are located below a crenellated wallhead in the outer right bay, with two similar bays to the left, culminating in a further pinnacle to the outer left. All openings are now blocked.

The Nairn facade, dating from 1864 and altered by Gillespie & Scott in 1895, is a single-storey, 14-bay (grouped 3-1-9-1) pilastraded industrial building. It is constructed of narrow ashlar blocks with dressed, raised long and short quoins, a base course, a raked cill course, and a cavetto cornice. The formerly round-headed openings are now blocked with boarded timber, featuring paired pilasters (droved), keystones, voussoirs, and chamfered arrises. The southern (High Street) elevation prominently features a deep base course with a pilastrade (paired pilasters) above and a broad, pedimented arch (former entrance) in the fourth bay, bearing the moulded panel 'M NAIRN & CO'. To the left are three bays on a gentle concave curve, each with a window, and to the right, nine similar bays. A lower bay with a pedimented window and cavetto-coped pilaster extends to the outer right, while a curvilinear gable with a bipartite window and corbelled gablehead is present on the return to the right.

The Fife College section, designed by Gillespie & Scott in 1914, is a three-storey, 19-bay (grouped 1-1-3-1-3-1-3-1-3-1-1) former canvas works. It's built of polished ashlar with band and cill courses, an eaves cornice, and a flat roof. Pilasters divide the bays, and a tall round-headed, keystoned former entrance is centrally positioned. Bipartite windows are common, with stone mullions. Appearing on a convex curve with a channelled plinth, bay groups are divided by pilasters above ground level, slightly advanced at ground level. A tall, glazed modern door (likely a former pend) is located at the outer left, while a tripartite window sits at the corner of bay 8. Other windows are bipartite, with regular fenestration to each floor.

The eastern elevation features three windows on each floor and a three-stage red brick stair tower to the outer right. The stair tower has a two-leaf door to the east at ground level, irregular fenestration above, and corbelled elevations to the second stage with cill courses to windows. A band course transitions into a narrow third stage with two small windows, abutting a further band course. Windows feature 10-, 12-, and 14-pane glazing patterns in metal frames, while casement windows in the stair tower have 16- and 24-pane glazing patterns.

The interior retains cast-iron columns on each floor. Boundary walls are constructed of ashlar-coped rubble, with the northern wall featuring a row of large cast-iron brackets.