Primary School, Lochard Road, Aberfoyle

Aberfoyle Primary School is a large Gothic single-storey school with an attached 1½-storey schoolhouse, arranged in a roughly L-shaped plan. The building represents three distinct phases of development, all overseen by the prominent Scottish architect John Honeyman, which accounts for the consistency of detailing throughout.

The earliest section dates to 1870 and forms the westernmost part. Originally of roughly rectangular plan, it comprises a west-facing schoolhouse with three south-facing bays, the central bay gabled with triple lancet windows. The schoolhouse front elevation is symmetrical with three bays and a central gabled, buttressed porch. The porch features a shouldered doorway beneath a pointed arch with a head-stopped hoodmould. A third bay was later added to the north gable, and a rectangular bay window was built out to the left of the porch. The south gable displays a carved roundel containing the date '1870'.

The second section, built around 1890, has roughly an E-shaped plan with a five-bay entrance elevation facing west. The gabled central bay contains a pointed arched doorway with a foliate-stopped hoodmould, flanked by bipartite shouldered windows. The outer right bay is an advanced gable with lancets; the outer left bay's form has been obscured by the 1906 linking section.

The 1906 linking section connects the two earlier blocks and extends westward to join the 1870 school block. It mirrors the three-bay elevation of that section and includes a projecting gabled entrance porch between the two sections. This porch has a pointed arched door opening with foliate-capitalled columns and a hoodmould with foliate stops.

Throughout all three phases, the architectural detailing is consistent, featuring shouldered windows and gable-headed bays that break the eaves with tripartite cusped lancet windows. A T-plan extension was added to the centre of the east elevation of the 1890 block in the later 20th century.

The interior is relatively plain, with reeded timber-boarded panelling to corridors. Plasterwork and roof timbers may remain beneath suspended ceilings, and simple cornicing is present in the rear offices. Most original joinery and internal doors survive.

The 1870 sections are constructed of whin rubble brought to courses, while the remainder uses mostly squared snecked whin rubble, with tooled sandstone dressings, margins and quoins with chamfered margins. Timber-boarded two-leaf storm doors protect all principal entrances. Windows are predominantly timber sash and case type: two-pane windows to the schoolhouse; multi-pane top sash with single-pane bottom sash to the 1890 and 1906 sections; six-pane windows to the south elevation; and fixed four or five-pane windows with top hoppers to lancet openings. The bipartite windows on the west elevation of the 1890 block have leaded panes. Pitched graded slate roofs feature two octagonal louvered ridge ventilators and overhanging bracketed eaves, with some plain bargeboards. The schoolhouse has two corniced ridge stacks, the 1890s block has one gable-head stack, and the 1906 linking section has two wallhead stacks, all corniced or coped and mostly with octagonal cans. Most rainwater goods are cast iron, including some hoppers dated '1906'.

The school is surrounded by random rubble boundary walls with rough saddle-back coping that form an almost complete perimeter.