When you’re searching for some recollections of your schooldays, or have an curiosity in academia and structure, then we’ve bought a top-of-the-class deal with for you! We’ve been doing our homework on Scotland’s historic excessive faculties, lots of that are (or had been) housed in spectacular and equally historic buildings.
We all know that these buildings have a distinctively Scottish character however we’re but to inform their tales intimately. To fill that hole, we’ll be publishing 20 detailed essays devoted to the perfect examples. Learn on for a taster of what’s included.
Recognizing historic excessive faculties
The previous Bathgate Academy exhibiting its clock tower and linking colonnades
With regards to recognizing historic college buildings in our cities and cities, it doesn’t assist that lots of them aren’t really faculties any extra! However they typically survive comparatively intact in new makes use of, with many recognised as listed buildings.
After closing, historic faculties had been typically stored in public management and reused for studying communities. instance of that is Farraline Park in Inverness (designed and constructed 1839-41), which grew to become a public library. The retention and re-use of those outdated buildings displays a city’s satisfaction of their surviving publicly-funded highschool buildings.
Many fee-paying faculties have remained of their authentic stone historic buildings. The outdated buildings signify the college’s lengthy historical past and traditions, and this could entice mother and father and guardians.
What’s in a reputation?
A marble statue of the founding father of Robert Gordon’s School. Gordon was a rich service provider in Aberdeen. The statue was by sculptor J Cheere.
Confusingly for us as we speak, what we name ‘excessive faculties’ had been initially recognized by a lot of names. You would possibly come throughout burgh faculties, city faculties, grammar faculties, proprietary academies and institutes. There have been additionally endowed hospital-schools which grew to become fee-paying day faculties.
You’ll discover that most of the the earliest college buildings in Scotland had been for fee-paying faculties, at the least initially. Excessive College training needed to be paid for – however the charges had been modest.
Our Scotland’s Historic City Faculties mission makes use of new analysis and evaluation to cowl all of these kinds of college from the 1700s as much as the Eighties.
Educating the folks
Employees in entrance of the principle constructing at Harlaw Academy within the Eighteen Nineties, when the college was generally known as Aberdeen Excessive College for Women. (© Harlaw Academy, reproduced courtesy of Harlaw Academy)
The oldest college we’ve checked out is Robert Gordon’s School in Aberdeen, which opened in 1731. The oldest surviving day college is the Haddington Burgh College, established in 1755.
Our major focus, nonetheless, is on the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. At the moment, there was an growth of secondary training and new faculties had been constructed throughout Scotland. These new college buildings belonged to a interval earlier than the standardisation of a nationwide training system in Scotland. Particular person college histories, typically authored by academics, have been an vital and helpful useful resource.
Our essays don’t simply cowl the structure of the buildings. Additionally they discover the academic and institutional historical past of our historic faculties, answering questions on how the brand new faculties had been funded, who ruled them and what topics they taught.
Surveying historic excessive faculties
A digital drawing from 2001 of the ‘Auld Home’ constructing at Robert Gordon’s School, Aberdeen. It reveals the entrance of the early eighteenth century constructing and the reconstructed plans of every ground. The drawing was based mostly on our detailed measured survey of 1998.
As soon as we’d chosen the historic college buildings to discover, they had been visited and surveyed in nice element by HES colleagues. This included pictures and measured survey which resulted in plans, and exquisite elevation drawings. We intention to know the ‘life’ of the constructing.
Every essay makes use of this info to inform the story of the design and use of the unique buildings, and in addition of any later buildings which have been added over time. These outdated buildings conceal many tales from Scotland’s complicated and every-changing academic previous.
Grand designs
An engraving of Dundee Excessive College c.1836 by Joseph Swan
So what have we uncovered? Firstly, we all know that every one the college buildings had been designed by main nationwide and regional architects and had been excessive standing public initiatives.
Variations of the revived classical kinds dominated college design, particularly for public-funded burgh and city faculties. It ranged from modest to extremely embellished basic kinds. Early examples embody imposing college buildings which had been classically formal and common in plan reminiscent of Haddington Outdated Grammar (1755) and Stirling Outdated Grammar (Gideon Grey, 1788).
The ‘mannequin’ burgh college grew to become the stark neo-classical Outdated Excessive College of Edinburgh (1777), designed by architect and mason Alexander Laing. It supplied a standard plan-type for floor and second ground school rooms and a big corridor. Laing’s flat-fronted common classical facade was described as being “void of all superfluous decoration”. Laing produced an analogous design for Inverness Royal Academy (1792). His components was shortly adopted by burgh faculties all through Scotland, reminiscent of Royal Tain Academy (1810-13, J Smith).
Temples of studying
An elevation drawing by Alexander Laing of the west entrance of the brand new Excessive College of Edinburgh. It was included in a pamphlet of 1777 which aimed to lift cash to construct the college. (Crown Copyright, Nationwide Information of Scotland)
This architectural components was in time tailored to create extra sculptural neo-classical stylistic fashions.
Greek revival designs of the 1820s and 1830s boasted massive columned temple fronts. They are often seen at rich academies like Greenback Academy (1820, William Playfair), and Bathgate Academy (1831, R & R Dickson), and Edinburgh Academy (1822-4, W Burn). The architectural peak was Edinburgh Royal Excessive College. It was Scotland’s foremost historic college when its new college constructing was designed and constructed on Regent Street by Thomas Hamilton in 1825-9.
By the mid-nineteenth century revived Tudor and Jacobean kinds dominated. For instance, William Burn’s revived neo-Jacobean Madras School, St Andrews (1832) was set spherical a courtyard within the model of George Heriot’s College in Edinburgh. In flip, Italianate and Baronial kinds had been additionally revived for brand new faculties.
Wish to see extra historic excessive faculties?
If this temporary introduction has served to whet you educational or architetcural urge for food, 5 of our essays on historic excessive faculties can be found on-line proper now!
Head to Canmore to obtain our options on Harlaw Academy in Aberdeen; Robert Gordon’s in Aberdeen; Bathgate Academy; Dundee Excessive College and Edinburgh Excessive College.
For extra training historical past, see our quick historical past of Donaldson’s College for the Deaf or the exceptional story of Britain’s first Black college trainer. For a extra fashionable Scottish college, try recollections of Craigmount Excessive on Canmore.
