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Summary

Description

T L Watson, 1894. 3-storey, 8-bay square-plan Renaissance style school. Pink ashlar to E, W and N, with E partly rubble-built at S end. S elevation of squared snecked rubble. Slate roof and ashlar stacks. Upper part of stack to S rebuilt with blue engineering brick. Lead covering to barrel roofs of stair towers. Ashlar N front to the Clyde has 2 wide tripartite windows on ground and 1st floors with sculptured tympana flanking 6 inner pedimented bays on 1st floor. 4 small windows at 2nd floor and dentil eaves cornice.

W ELEVATION (to Florence Street) 8 bays, with tripartite windows at ground and 1st floors to left. Arched doorway with paired Ionic pilasters and 'Boys Door' inscribed above, within off-centre advanced stair tower. All windows on E, W and N have architraves, with aprons at 1st floor level.

E ELEVATION: similar to W. Arched doorway with paired Ionic pilasters and 'Girls Door' inscribed in entablature.

S ELEVATION, to rear, has central bowed bay rising through all 3 storeys.

Timber framed sash and case windows, with original pattern 12 lying panes in most.

INTERIOR: central glazed atrium with arched braced roof and glazed modern lift shaft inserted. Stone stairs with iron balustrades and timber rail. Some rooms retain original timber tongue & groove half-height panelling. Timber and glazed timber doors (non-original). Timber upper floors. Screed on ground floor (non-original). Original partitions removed on topmost floor E to create large studio space.

Gate piers and iron railings to Florence Street.

Statement of Special Interest

The Adelphi Street School is a good example of a large Glasgow School Board design, with compact massing and internal arrangement around a central atrium, having galleries linking the segregated boys and girls stairs at each end of the building. The successful Glasgow architect, Thomas Lennox Watson (1850-1920), spent 3 years in the office of Alfred Waterhouse, which appears to have influenced his designs. For, while Watson was equally adept at Gothic, for example Kilmacolm Hydropathic, and Classical, for example the Wellington Church beside Glasgow University, he also designed in a neo-Romanesque style similar to Waterhouse. The best examples of this being the Victoria Baths Club, Glasgow, and the North UP Church, in Perth. He also designed 6 schools for the Glasgow School Board, including Garnetbank School, Renfrew Street (B listed), as well as other schools elsewhere and several churches. He was also involved in architectural education as an examiner and served on the board of the RIBA. Although, the school has lost much of its context due to the transformation of its immediate surroundings, with most of the neighbouring sites being redeveloped at least once since 1960. Also lost are the janitor's house, rain shelters, lavatories, part of the playground and part of the boundary wall. Adelphi Terrace, which the principal elevation addressed has become a walkway with no direct access to the school. It is a prominent landmark viewed from the N bank of the Clyde and Albert Bridge, and it is one of the few buildings extant from the old pre-WWII Gorbals. The building has found an alternative educational use as the annexe for the Glasgow College of Printing (March 2010). List description updated 2011.

References

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