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Royal High School Edinburgh

Architect: Hamilton, Thomas, RSA · 1784-1858

Royal High School Edinburgh

This watercolour drawing is part of the series of drawings that Thomas Hamilton made for the new Royal High School on the south side of Calton Hill.…

This watercolour drawing is part of the series of drawings that Thomas Hamilton made for the new Royal High School on the south side of Calton Hill. In 1825 the site was selected and Thomas Hamilton produced an initial design which was approved on 27th July 1825. Thomas Hamilton's working drawings for the school were completed in May 1826 and the builidng work was completed on 23rd June 1829. The Diploma Work watercolour depicts a more ornate vision than the building that was actually constructed, with a carved frieze to the pediment of the central temple which is flanked by monumental Classical statues based on the Thrasylus Monument at Athens. According to Dr Joe Rock the modifications to the original drawings depicted in the Diploma Work were made in a single sheet dated June 1828 ( in the NMRS collection). This may therefore be the date of the Diploma Work. The presence of railings in the Diploma Work drawing is a little puzzling as according to Dr Joe Rock these railings were not erected until 1848 (reference in an article on the Royal High School by W.C.A. Ross in 1925 where he cites Minutes of Town Council "The Town Council acting on complaints from the residents in Regent Road about "nuisances" agreed in 1848 to put up ' a low iron gate, flush with the front wall at each of the doorways leading to a portico from Regent Road and a cope and iron railing in a line with the projecting buttresses in front of the two lodges.") Dr Joe Rock's theory is that Hamilton must have therefore modified the drawing after 1831, however there is no evidence in RSA Archives that this modification occured.