Brora, Clynelish Road, Clyne Parish School

L-plan school with late 19th century wing to SW creating overall U-plan. Coursed rubble; rugged rubble detail to quoins, dominant wall stacks to S and window and door surrounds; dormer windows with timber boarding in apex.

An example of a Sutherland estate school demonstrating features common to many other estate properties designed by George Devey.

London-based Devey was responsible for many buildings on the Duke of Sutherland's estates in England and Scotland and influenced William Fowler who was appointed as the Sutherland estate surveyor in 1857. Features which Fowler often used throughout the Sutherland estate are also present here, notably the steep sloping roof with neat dormers, prominent stacks, rugged rubble masonry and skewputts. The later addition has been neatly incorporated into the building suggesting one hand in the design. In July 1863, Fowler reported that 'Clyne School [was] complete and occupied'. The area experienced a rejuvenation with the opening of the railway in 1871 and the resumption of the mining and brick industry the following year. The principal minute book from a school meeting held (most likely at this school) on 3rd June 1873 mentions the parish school and the Free Church school and records the need for two further schools. This call for two additional schools is echoed in 1840 by the minister of Clyne in the New Statistical Account. The school accommodated the schoolmaster (who in 1881 was Mr Morris Myron) and his family. It remained in use as a school until 1903 when the new Clyne School was built. The building is currently unoccupied (2003). It is sited prominently beside a crossroads, north of Brora. (Historic Scotland)