Trossachs Primary School Schoolhouse, Brig O'Turk

Trossachs Primary School Schoolhouse, Brig O'Turk

This schoolhouse and schoolroom, dated 1875, was built to replace the original school established by the SSPCK in Brig O'Turk in 1719. Although the school has since been extended and its interior modernised to meet educational requirements, the original architectural character typical of Trossachs village buildings of this period has been largely preserved.

The building complex originally followed a T-plan layout, with the schoolroom forming the vertical element and the adjoining house across the top. The principal south-west elevation is distinctly multi-gabled, using these gables to mark a clear separation between schoolroom and schoolhouse. The schoolhouse occupies a large 2-bay advanced gable to the left, whilst the 3-bay schoolroom to the right is set back with a symmetrical hierarchy of 3 smaller gables and a stepped façade. The gables have plain bargeboards supported on carved decorative timber brackets, with the projected eaves fitted with plain timber brackets.

The schoolhouse features a doorway to the right-hand side of its advanced gable front, with a stepped, banded hoodmould framing an ashlar plaque dated 1875. The window surrounds have a thin tooled margin, stop-chamfered at the sides, with stugged, long and short ashlar outer surrounds. The north-west side elevation originally displayed a 2-bay symmetrical glazing pattern with gabled wallhead, breaking eaves dormers and a ground floor window at the far left and right of the elevation. This pattern was disrupted by the later addition of a centrally placed ground floor window. The overhanging eaves feature plain brackets, and a tall, shouldered and capped wallhead chimney sits to the left of the right-hand dormer. The gabled rear elevation is plain except for a single ground floor window and a later lean-to shed. A timber pitch-roofed porch stands to the left of this gable in the return between schoolhouse and school, with a dormer window above looking south-east along the school roofline. Internal access to the schoolhouse was not obtained during the 2005 resurvey.

The principal south-west elevation of the school originally had only 2 gabled bays. At the centre is a small early 20th-century projecting addition with a lean-to roof returning to the main eaves. A gabled, timber-boarded wallhead dormer raises the window level and forms the third gable at the centre of the main schoolroom elevation. Set back from this office are 2 tall, breaking eaves gables, one either side of the later addition. Each bay has a segmental archway at the centre with 2-light segmental-arched windows inset. The wall steps back again on either side of these bays. This elevation originally provided the formal school entrance. The segmental archways, now infilled, once held separate Boys' and Girls' entrances, whilst the central office had a doorway to the right return, now stone infilled with a small window. This doorway may have replaced the two original entrances when the early 20th-century extension was added, and features a decorative splayed and banded surround with a projecting stylised keystone. Modernisation of the school has drastically altered the internal layout and circulation, with the entrance now accessed through a security door on the south-east elevation of a flat-roofed 1964 rear addition. Before this extension, the gabled south-east and north-east elevations were largely unused except for a large transom and mullioned window on the side elevation. The rear is now largely obscured by the mid-20th-century extension, leaving only 2 windows of the original north-east elevation visible to the right of the extension.

Internally, only the curved timbers of the original braced arch roof structure remain in place, corbelled from mid-height of the wall on decorative brackets. There are 6 bays of these arches, though only their bottom sections are visible today, hidden by a false panelled ceiling installed in the early 1990s following a school fire. The condition of the timbers above the false ceiling is unknown.

Materials

Squared whinstone and sandstone rubble to the principal elevation with tooled and stugged ashlar dressings; random rubble to sides and rear. Lined mortar courses to the principal elevation; heavily pointed to sides and rear. Timber bargeboards and brackets. 4-pane timber sash and case windows to the schoolhouse. PVCu single and 3-light windows and doors to the school. Pitched roofs with grey slates to the schoolhouse and modern late 20th-century grey and purple slate to the school. Ashlar-capped stacks; conical, capped, tapered cans dating to the 20th century on the schoolhouse; the school stack is blocked.