Morrison's Academy, Ferntower Road, Crieff

Morrison's Academy is a Baronial-style school building dating from 1860, designed by Peddie & Kinnear, with subsequent additions in 1878 and later alterations. The Memorial Hall was remodelled internally in 1920 by Scott Morton & Co, and a southeast wing was rebuilt following a fire in 1952. The academy is two and three storeys high with an attic, and consists of eleven bays, dominated by a three-stage entrance tower with flanking turrets. The exterior is constructed of stugged squared and snecked rubble with ashlar dressings, featuring a raised base course, stepped string courses, and a moulded eaves course. A segmental-headed moulded doorpiece is set beneath a hoodmould.

The principal (southwest) elevation is symmetrical. The tall, projecting centre bay contains single windows at ground level, leading to an advanced centre tower with steps up to a two-leaf timber door. The door is set under a stepped hoodmould incorporating the school emblem, with windows on returns and a transomed tripartite window at the second stage, giving way to a corbelled canted oriel window with a stepped cornice and a relief carving of '1859' at the jettied third stage. A narrow light is set in the gablehead, surmounted by a bellcote. Flanking the re-entrant angles are conical-roofed turrets with weathervane finials, corbelled over the ground floor and featuring narrow lights at each stage. The roof has a set-back pitch with diminutive timber-pedimented dormer windows, some of which are blocked. Lower flanking bays contain four windows to each floor, separated by a stepped dividing string course incorporating blind panels. Windows to the first floor have finialled stone-pedimented dormerheads and small blind panels. The ground floor windows to the right are grouped as three and one (the latter bipartite). Broad gabled outer bays are each defined by a full-height canted window and a further single window in the gablehead.

The northwest elevation has a stone porch at the left, containing a raised tripartite window and a two-leaf timber door on return to the right, with a bipartite window above. There are two windows in the bays to the right at each floor. An arrowslit is set in the centre gablehead, flanked by smaller finialled gables; the gable to the left has a moulded panel containing monogrammed initials 'PK'. The northeast (rear) elevation presents a rambling appearance with varied elements, including a single-storey wing to the right and an advanced centre gable. The southeast elevation shows a rebuilt section with a broad porch to the left and regular fenestration.

The windows are timber sash and case, with three, four, or eight panes of glazing. Coloured glass is incorporated into the transomed window. The roof is covered with graded grey slates, with fishscale slates to the turrets, and modern rooflights. Coped ashlar stacks, ashlar-coped stepped skews, gabletted crowsteps and beak skewputts are present. Cast-iron downpipes feature decorative rainwater hoppers and fixings.

Inside, the academy includes plain cornices, corniced doorpieces, segmental-arched openings, some boarded dadoes, and a screen door with etched glass (a replacement). Dog-leg stone staircases have decorative cast-iron balusters. The oak-panelled memorial hall commemorates pupils lost in World Wars I and II and features a cantilevered gallery and a Memorial window by Douglas Strachan (possibly dated 1923), depicting the Virtues and a soldier receiving a drink.