West Primary School, 42 Milton Road, Kirkcaldy

West Primary School, 42 Milton Road, Kirkcaldy

A single-storey and attic gothic school designed by Sir Robert Rowand Anderson in 1876, with additions made in 1878, 1935 by George Sandilands, and a 1989 single-storey link to the west by Fife Region Architect. The building is constructed of bull-faced squared and snecked rubble with ashlar dressings, with a harled extension. An ashlar base course sits on a rock-faced rubble bed, and string courses feature in the gableheads. The openings throughout employ pointed-arch and shouldered forms with plate tracery, whilst two-stage buttresses, relieving arches, voussoirs and hoodmoulds with label-stops are characteristic. Reveals are chamfered, with stone transoms and mullions throughout.

The principal elevation to the north is symmetrical and rises across eleven bays grouped as 1-4-1-4-1. The centre bay contains a hoodmoulded, transomed bipartite window with carved animal detail to the blind, and cusped tri-lobed windowheads in pointed-arch openings. A circular moulding with carved foliage and phoenix surrounds the whole, creating the appearance of plate tracery. A string course and small raised-centre triple loop sit in the low gablehead, which is finialled. A timber-louvered fleche with slate-hung aprons crowns the roof-ridge above. Four bipartite windows stand to the right of centre, with a small slate-hung, timber-louvered dormer vent positioned above in the steeply-pitched roof. A broad, advanced gabled bay to the outer right contains two bipartite windows set high within hoodmoulded outer framing with floriate detail to tri-lobed windowheads in pointed-arch openings. Small animal heads appear at the springing points. This bay flanks the first stage of a coped buttress, whose second stage extends to the string course below the triple loop and a further string course above in the gablehead. A bipartite window appears on the return to the left. Bays to the left of centre mirror those to the right.

The east elevation comprises five bays, with a later pitch-roofed extension and flat-roofed porch to the outer left. The centre bay features a slightly advanced, full-height chimney breast, coped and raked above the eaves line to the base of a tall rounded stack. Two bipartite windows occupy the flanking bays.

The west elevation mirrors the east with five bays; a 1989 single-storey extension with asymmetrical fenestration occupies the outer right, with the main entrance in a small gable to the left of centre.

The south elevation faces an enclosed courtyard playground, with a piended wing to the right of centre and a 1989 link to the left. The attic features gables to the outer right and left, each with a tripartite window, pointed relieving arch and single loop in the gablehead. Two timber-louvered dormer air vents match those on the north elevation. The south perimeter of the courtyard contains a gabled rubble building at the centre, a 1935 harled extension to the east, and a 1989 extension to the west.

The southwest block follows an irregular L-plan, with north and east elevations overlooking the enclosed courtyard playground and an outbuilding to the east.

The west elevation facing Methven Road features an advanced, broad gable with a transomed tripartite, plate-traceried window with hoodmould and single loop in the gablehead. A smaller, pitch-roofed bay sits in a re-entrant angle to the right, with a bipartite window and blinded door on the return to the right, and a polygonal ridge stack. Three bipartite windows occupy the recessed face to the right.

The south elevation facing William Street contains a broad gable to the left with two hoodmoulded, transomed, bipartite plate-traceried windows and a decorative, hoodmoulded oculus in the gablehead. Six bipartite windows sit in the recessed face to the right.

Small-pane glazing patterns feature in top-opening timber windows throughout. Graded grey slates cover the roof. Coped ashlar stacks and ashlar-coped stepped skews are present, along with cast-iron downpipes fitted with decorative rainwater hoppers and fixings.

The interior has been largely modernised, though some boarded dados remain. The hall to the north block has an open beam roof, stepped dado, and elliptical-arched openings. The hall to the south contains traceried windows, an open beam ceiling with corbelled brackets, and some original window-opening mechanisms survive.

An outbuilding with slated roof stands within the courtyard, featuring a brick wall to the west and a pitched-roof to the east supported on cast-iron columns; modern extensions abut it to the north and south.

The boundary treatment comprises stop-chamfered, coped ashlar gatepiers, low saddleback-coped boundary walls (some with railings), and coped rubble boundary walls. A decorative cast-iron lamp bracket sits at the northeast boundary.