School House, Milton Of Buchanan

Loch Lomond And Trossachs National Park Planning Authority

The Old Schoolhouse, built 1764 by Alexander Gowan, mason (NAS, GD220/6/50), comprises a pair of 2-storey semi-detached cottages with single storey additions to the rear. They occupy a prominent position on a corner of the road through the small village of Milton of Buchanan. It is a little altered example of an 18th century estate building with distinctive glazing and historical interest as the parish school.

The front (NE) elevation is symmetrical; to the 4-bay ground floor, the 2 inner bays have distinctive multi-paned sash windows and the outer bays have timber-boarded doors which each give direct access to a single downstairs room. The first floor has three horizontally orientated windows, with unusual multi-paned horizontally sliding sashes; the central window lights the stair of the SE cottage.

Each side elevation has one window to ground floor. The rear (SW) elevation has a single storey piend-roofed 19th century extension to the left, which currently (2004) contains a bathroom and kitchen; to the right of this is a lean-to timber shed, which conceals a doorway in the rear wall of the original building. There is a window to the far right at ground floor, and one near central window to the 1st floor. The 2 substantial nepus stacks, with coping and circular clay cans, are symmetrically disposed at the rear, and to the very left of the roof is a tiny rooflight which lights the stair of the NW cottage.

Interior:

The SE cottage has 1 ground floor room, with a broad timber stair leading to the single 1st floor room, which has a stone hearth (now inset with bricks) with a timber chimneypiece with reeded panels and roundels, a distinctive design which is found in many other local Buchanan Castle Estate buildings of 18th century date. The floorboards continue underneath the room partitions, suggesting that the upper floor may have originally been one single room, and later subdivided to form 2 cottages. The NW cottage follows the same format, but with a much narrower timber stair set against the NW side wall; this may have originally been a service stair, but was perhaps inserted at a later date, when the building was subdivided, to give access to the 1st floor for the NW cottage. To the ground floor room is a small tiled cooking range with integral open hearth; to the 1st floor room is a chimneypiece of the same design as that in the SE cottage, but with a cast iron round arched basket grate.

Materials:

White-painted harl. Timber sash and case windows; to front elevation, 42-paned with horns to ground floor, 24-paned to 1st floor; mixture of 4 and 12 panes to side and rear elevations. Piended roof with graded slates. Predominantly cast iron rainwater goods.