Clifton Hall School has lodged plans with the City of Edinburgh Council for a theatre within the grounds of its estate.

Clifton Hall is a co-educational independent day school for pupils aged three to 18, located in Newbridge, Edinburgh.

The school intends to build the theatre next to its A-listed Scots Baronial mansion ‘to cater for pupils and visiting productions’.

In a statement to planners the school said: “The school proposes to create a small purpose-built theatre within their estate and extend the offering of their drama and performing arts programme, providing a flexible space and fully-accessible building to cater for the school pupils and visiting productions.”

The statement, supported by architects, Nicoll Russell Studios, added: “The school is based within the grounds of Clifton Hall Estate, within the Kirkliston Parish, the centrepiece within the 47-acre site is the category A-listed, two-storey Scots Baronial mansion designed by David Bryce.

“The layout of the listed building is additive and to quote its listing ‘rambling’ in nature and originally consisted of stables, outbuildings, and a dovecot.

“Whilst the overall landscape is not designated as a designed landscape, the theatre and its potential location have been considered both in terms of its impact on the direct setting of the school and the manner in which it is read within its landscape.

“The vistas to and from the school along the driveway are therefore uninterrupted and the theatre does not distract from the approach to David Bryce’s Scots Baronial ‘mansion’.

“The site is well set back from the ‘mansion’, maintaining the articulation of the ‘mansion’s’ façade against its landscape setting, whilst the theatre’s preferred location against the woodland does not dilute the quality of the landscape room in which the ‘mansion’ is set.”