Glasgow And West Of Scotland College Of Domestic Science, Park Drive, Glasgow

This is a substantial educational establishment dating from 1913, designed by Walter Robert Watson of Cowan and Watson. It was constructed as the Glasgow and West of Scotland College of Domestic Science and is situated on a sloping site. The building has a rectangular plan, incorporating a light well to the rear, and is three storeys high with a classical attic and a basement. Later additions were made in 1938 by James Monro and Son to the northwest, and in 1976 by Building Design Partnership to the northeast.

The building’s architecture is characterised by Late Renaissance detailing and is constructed of red sandstone ashlar, with bull-faced stone to the basement. The southwest elevation, which fronts Park Drive, displays 19 symmetrical bays arranged as 3-1-5-1-5-1-3, with doorways within the outer single bays. The doorways have elaborate doorpieces featuring banded pilasters, consoles supporting dentilled segmental arches, and round-arched, keystoned doorways with fanlights. The doors are panelled, and the basement areas are oversailed with bridges and railings. The exterior features pediments above the first-floor windows and an eaves cornice with an ashlar balustrade. Arched segmental windows are present on the second floor. The ground floor windows of the central and penultimate bays are adorned with swept trapezoid pediments carved in recess, depicting cornucopiae. Narrower windows flank those in the penultimate bays on each floor.

The southeast elevation, facing Park Avenue, is ten bays wide, featuring a broad, blank bay on the outer left with a moulded wallhead stack breaking the balustrade. The entrance bays, located in the third and seventh bays from the left, have pediments above the first-floor windows. A round-arched doorway with keystone and voussoirs leads to the stairwell within the third bay, flanked above by round-arched windows with a broken pediment at the first floor. Carved pediments are consistent with those on the ground floor windows of the Park Drive elevation. A secondary basement door is situated on the sloping ground in the seventh bay, also with a keystone.

The windows are predominantly 6-, 8-, and 12-pane sashes with top hoppers. Corniced red sandstone stacks are present. A copper mansard roof, featuring a window in each bay and ventilators, tops the main elevation.

Decorative cast-iron railings are located along the southwest elevation, supported by moulded ashlar posts with polygonal caps at intervals. The interior was not inspected in 1991.