Auchterderran Staff Development And Resources Centre, Woodend Road, Auchterderran

Auchterderran Staff Development and Resources Centre is a single-storey former school designed by William Williamson in 1904, with later alterations. It comprises 18 bays plus altered outer bays with a gabled form. The building is constructed of stugged, squared rubble with coursed rubble to the rear and polished, stugged ashlar dressings. It features a deep chamfered base course and eaves course, with chamfered reveals and stone mullions throughout.

The principal west elevation is symmetrical with bays grouped in threes. Two prominent pedimented dormerheads break the eaves line—one carved with a flower and one with a thistle—flanking smaller windows at the centre. Beyond these are advanced gables with round-headed, keystoned and hoodmoulded windows in their centres, each gable bearing a datestone and moulding in the gablehead topped with a finial of carved stone strapwork. Further groups of pedimented dormerheads continue outward, with slightly advanced outer bays similarly treated. At ground level, out-of-character modern flat-roofed porches obscure the original detailing.

The east elevation is single-storey at ground level but becomes two-storeys in the outer right bay. It features six tall, dormerheaded windows that break the eaves line. The south elevation has a slightly advanced centre gable with a tall window at centre and flanking smaller windows, with three windows in each of the bays to right and left. The north elevation is similarly composed with a slightly advanced centre gable, garage doors and a cast-iron column at ground level, and regular fenestration at first floor matching the south elevation.

The building to the south has a west entrance elevation that is symmetrical, with a tall window bearing a finialled and pedimented dormerhead breaking the eaves to the right of centre. Three bays with similar treatments flank this to left of centre. Advanced, corbelled and finialled gables occupy the outer bays; the right gable contains a keystoned and canopied segmental-headed doorway with an adjacent bipartite window, all beneath a low crenellated parapet extending across the return to the left with two small windows. The left gable has a modern flat-roofed porch below an arrow slit in the gablehead with stepped skew.

The south elevation features a centre bay with a tripartite window displaying a raised centre light and moulded semicircular dormerhead breaking the eaves. A similar window appears in the bay to the right of centre. Bipartite windows occupy the outer right and left bays, with a low crenellated parapet and three windows to the outer left. The north elevation is symmetrical with a raised centre tripartite window in a gable breaking the eaves, and similar windows to the outer bays with centre lights featuring semicircular dormerheads. The east elevation contains a tripartite window with a quatrefoil above the centre light and stepped hoodmould in the outer right gable, with an arrow slit and stepped skew. The outer left gable has two windows. A later harled link section spans the centre with a door to the left and four large round-headed windows.

Throughout all principal and most other elevations, windows are fitted with small-pane glazing patterns in timber sash and case windows. The roof is graded grey slates with ashlar-coped skews, moulded skewputts and finials. Decorative overhanging eaves and square-section gutters complete the external finish.

The interior contains a round-headed door from the south-east opening into a centre hall with an open-beam ceiling and rooflights. Classrooms are located to the east and west. A marble memorial to Adam Rankine, who died in 1906 and served as parochial schoolmaster of Auchterderran for 36 years, is positioned within the hall.

Outbuildings comprise slated, dry-dash structures with cast-iron columns, and some former playground shelters are partly blocked. A high semicircular-coped rubble boundary wall bounds the property to the south and east, with low coped boundary walls and railings to the west.