Description

Circa 1948. Large, symmetrical, 2-storey, 13-bay, purpose-built Neo-Georgian sport and recreational hall with steeply sloping roof and paired advanced entrance and stair bays linked by covered colonnade and balcony overlooking rugby pitch on wide open site. Round arched windows at first floor. Tall roof with plain dutch style end gables, timber-bracketed overhanging eaves, and large, timber and leaded octagonal dome capped ventilator to ridge. Rendered. Squared chamfered columns supporting 7-bay covered colonnade with open balcony over to view rugby pitch.

Predominantly timber multi-pane windows (replacements to first floor caretaker's flat) and timber and glazed entrance doors throughout. Slated roof, rendered stack to rear.

INTERIOR (Seen 2013) : original plan interior intact with central large double height hall with plain dado panelling, barrel vaulted roof, stage and ancillary spaces behind. The former balcony to the hall now partition off to form 1st floor meeting room with access from stairwell. 1st floor hall to N end with caretakers flat with separate entrance to S end (not seen). Timber and glazed doors and screens. Fine stone stairwells to projecting bays with neo-Classical manner cross detail to metal banisters with open squared and capped metal newel posts.

Statement of Interest

A large purpose-built community sports and recreational building with unusual design detailing surviving largely in its original condition on a large open site of community ground. The building is a fine example of a community building of the era and a rare building type because of the restrictions on building and materials in the immediate post war period which were not lifted until 1953. It is likely by the design that the building was designed before, but not constructed until after World War Two. The interior has some good utilitarian decorative detailing such as the banisters and joinery details. A small section of the original plain white and blue tiling has been retained.

The Stoneyhill Community Centre was built as a philanthropic contribution to the community by Inveresk Paper Mills. There are two other sports buildings built by a company for the workers that are listed: the Paton and Baldwins Sports Pavilion in Alloa (1924-6) and the Power League Building in Paisley (Former Anchor Recreation Club )(1924-5).

The building was designed as a recreation hall and sports centre with associated running tracks and sports field. It sits to the edge of housing scheme of 1931 by Burgh Surveyor John Barclay. The building was taken over by the Town Council in 1949 for a brief period then shortly after that was also adopted by the Musselburgh Rugby Club. In 2002 it was in a poor state of repair at which point it was taken into East Lothian Council ownership with an agreement to be run by Musselburgh Rugby Club as a community resource centre. The building is in continuing use as the local community centre, as a playgroup and for other recreational facilities.

The building was refurbished in 2012 to provide new catering and bathroom facilities and the timber glazed partition to the south end of the hall was moved to create a storage facility behind. New fire exit and mobility access ramps also installed at this time.

Listed as part of the sporting buildings thematic study (2012-13).

External Links

• Historic Environment Scotland Listing
• Wikidata Q77782399

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  ENGLAND GUIDE TO POST WAR LISTED: A Guide to Post-war Listed Buildings
• 
  Yorkshire West Riding: Sheffield and the South (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Kent: West and the Weald: The Buildings of England (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Specifications for Building Conservation: Volume 1: External Structure: Practical Examples v. 2
• 
  Oxfordshire: North and West (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Development and Design of Heritage Sensitive Sites: Strategies for Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas