Building record MAB42139 - COMMUNITY CENTRE, ANN STREET, STONEHAVEN

Former school, now a community centre, built by J Russell Mackenzie and dated 1875.

Former school, now a community centre, built by J Russell Mackenzie and dated 1875. Originally Fetteresso School, it closed as a school in 1970 and was subsequently converted to Stonehaven Community Centre. It is a single and two-storey, five-bay, E-plan, gothic-detailed former school building constructed from coursed squared rubble with ashlar dressings two courses deep, stugged quoins stone mullions, chamfered arrises, raked cills and base, band and eaves courses. The grey slate roof has original, vertically-astragalled horizontal rooflights to the west, coped ashlar ridge stacks, ashlar-coped skews with moulded skewputts, stone finials, a quatrefoil-panelled parapet and cast-iron downpipes with decorative dated rainwater hoppers. The principal, symmetrical east elevation has broad advanced outer gables. The centre bay at the ground has a shoulder-arched doorway incorporating a corniced door with a blocked fanlight and flanking narrow lights. The three centre bays at the first floor rise into dormer gablets, comprising a wider centre bay with a roundel (possibly a former clock) in the tympanum, and each outer bay with a glazed quatrefoil in the tympanum. There are wide-centre tripartite windows, those to the first floor with taller, shoulder-arched centre lights rising into pointed-arch panels in dormer gablets at the centre bays, and an overarch recess embracing all three lights at the outer gables. The west elevation is a plainer, also symmetrical, single-storey, E-plan elevation, entering at the first floor level. The advanced outer gables each have a raised centre tripartite, with a door on the south return of the north and a window on the north return of south gable. The lower centre gable has a bipartite window flanked by small gabletted porches and flanking narrow lights. The north and south elevations are on ground falling steeply to the east, resulting in single-storey bays to the west and two-storey bays to the east. Inside, features include moulded cornices, pointed-arch openings, panelled timber doors, some corniced, vertically-boarded timber dadoes, a dog-leg staircase with decorative cast-iron balusters, a pilastered first-floor hall and first-floor rooms to the north and south, each with a hammerbeam roof. At the north-west corner of the former playground (now a car park) is a slated and piended rubble ancillary building, with three horizontal blocked window openings to the north, a timber door to the east, a flat-roofed extension to the south and a large louvered ridge ventilator. The playground was formerly divided by a high wall into separate areas for boys and girls. There are extensive coped rubble boundary walls.

Period Notes
Listed 25/11/1980

Record last edited

Mar 29 2018 11:04AM