Main Buildings at St Cuthbert's College, Ushaw, Quadrangle, Museum, Infirmary, Class Rooms and Service Ranges

St Cuthbert's College, Ushaw: Main Buildings, Quadrangle, Museum, Infirmary, Classrooms and Service Ranges

This is a Roman Catholic diocesan seminary complex comprising offices, classrooms, common rooms, refectory, chapel (now hall) with dormitories above, infirmary and service ranges.

The north, south and east quadrangle ranges were built in 1804–8, probably by James Taylor of Islington, with amendments and supervision by William Bell of Newcastle. The west quadrangle range followed in 1812–17 in the same style. Around 1837–40, alterations and additions included the kitchen range, entrance hall and staircase, mostly by 'Mr Green of Newcastle'. The west range Professors' Dining Room was gothicised in 1855–6, and a stair turret added in 1856 by Edward Welby Pugin. The boiler house and laundry were added in 1854–6 by E. W. Pugin, who also remodelled the kitchen and convent range in 1859. The infirmary was built by E. W. Pugin in 1856–8. The north range refectory was gothicised in 1846 by Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin, extended in 1873, and had its roof raised to add a dormitory in 1901–2 by Peter Paul Pugin. The former chapel was altered to a hall and gothicised in 1848 by Joseph Hansom, with an east extension added by 1890 by Peter Paul Pugin. The south range had a top dormitory storey added in 1905–7 by Sebastian Pugin Powell, and a new front door and steps in 1908.

The buildings are constructed of coursed squared sandstone with ashlar quoins, plinth and dressings, beneath roofs of graduated Lakeland slate. They combine Neo-classical and Gothic Revival styles.

Exterior

The south elevation is four storeys high, arranged 1:6:3:6 bays (16 in total). It is symmetrical except for a set-back staircase bay on the left. Steps rise to central panelled double doors with a fanlight featuring vertical glazing bars, set within a wide round-headed surround with narrow courses and voussoirs. The three central bays project slightly, with an open second-floor pediment continuous with a bracketed second-floor cornice. Windows are sashes with glazing bars, featuring alternate-block jambs and voussoirs, and sill bands; those on the top two floors are smaller. Pilasters define blank bays above the pediment. The top cornice continues over the balustraded parapet of the set-back left bay. There are five ashlar-corniced transverse ridge chimneys.

The east elevation is two storeys with nine bays, and has matching buttressed and stepped chimneys between bays 3 and 4, and between bays 6 and 7. Bays 2 and 8 are blank on the ground floor with small windows on the first floor. All other bays contain large windows with alternate-block jambs and voussoirs; ground-floor windows are 12-over-12 sashes, replaced by casements on the first floor. The ground-floor window in bay 9 is obscured by a later linking block. A flat sill course runs along the first floor, with a raised parapet above rising to form gables at the chimneys.

The quadrangle elevations feature the following: the south, east and west ranges have sashes, most with glazing bars and some with 20th-century glazing, in the same style as the front windows. The east range has an original double door and overlight. The west range has a central Gothic-style stair turret (E. W. Pugin, 1856) with side buttresses, dripmoulds over the door and a traceried stair window, and a steeply pitched gable. The north range has low pent wash-places (J. & C. Hansom, 1854), triple shouldered clerestory lights to the corridor, and straight-headed lights to the refectory on the left and hall on the right behind. The dormitory over the refectory has a mansard roof and turret.

Boiler House and Laundry

This extends north from the north-east corner of the quadrangle blocks. The boiler house forms a transverse gabled block at the north end of the laundry, with two gabled dormers in the north slope of the roof. The laundry roof has truncated chimneys on its north and south gables with numerous flues and vents piercing the slates. The west side, facing into the service court, is lined with ancillary single-storey spaces. The west façade consists of five approximately symmetrical bays: to the left, the large gable of the boiler house contains a stepped and transomed three-light window with shallow arched heads and a small single cusped lancet in the apex; then a bay occupied by a boarded double-doored cart entrance beneath a cusped lancet in the gablet; a bay with a double straight-headed window; a bay with glazed double doors beneath a cusped lancet in the gablet; and to the right, a large gable with a boarded and glazed sliding-doored cart entrance and a double straight-headed window on the ground floor, and two tall double straight-headed windows on the first floor. A chamfered and coped chimney rises from the apex.

Kitchen and Convent Range

This forms an irregular T-shape extending north and then west from the centre of the north quadrangle range. It is two storeys and three storeys in places, and irregularly fenestrated. All windows are ashlar-dressed and retain their original glazing—some casements, some sashes—most square-headed, some mullioned, some transomed. One gabled dormer on the east façade has a traceried decorative Gothic two-light window with leaded panes. To the west of this range is a curving ramped cart entrance which passes beneath the linking passage to the infirmary.

Infirmary

The infirmary is built of coursed squared sandstone with ashlar dressings beneath a pitched graduated slate roof. It has a squat H-plan with a projecting gable on its main south front, in Decorated Gothic style. The south elevation is symmetrical with five bays. The central bay projects forward with a tall gable bearing a large three-light traceried Decorated window at first floor. The ground floor has an entrance door beneath a depressed two-centred arched head flanked by paired cusped and transomed lancets. Above the door is an armorial panel bearing the arms of the college. The bays on either side each have a triplet of cusped transomed lancets on the ground floor and a shouldered, depressed two-centred arched-headed window beneath a hood mould on the first floor. The pitch of the roof is punctured by two gabled louvred dormers with cusped bargeboards. The east and west elevations have projecting gabled bays flanking a central block. The north gables have windows matching those in the south elevation's outer bays, while the southern gables have a single window formed of a graduated triplet of cusped lancets beneath a hood mould. The ground floor of the north gables is partly occupied by the linking blocks to St Bede's Centre and the kitchens. The central block has a pair of windows matching those at first floor on the south elevation's outer bays, with, on the west elevation, a single cusped and transomed lancet on either side. The north elevation is dominated by a pair of tall projecting chimney stacks at either end flanking numerous single, double and triple lancet windows. A gable marks the centre of the elevation.

Chemical Laboratory

This is loosely based on the Abbot's Kitchen at Glastonbury: square-plan, two-bay, single-storey. It is attached to the east end of the hall in the north range of the main college building by a seven-bay single-storey corridor. It is built of thin courses of squared sandstone with an ashlar plinth and dressings; the roofs are of graduated Lakeland slates with stone gable copings and fleur-de-lys-crested ridge tiles. The laboratory has a stepped sill string under transomed windows with two cusped lights under a gabled dormer, angle buttresses, and a steeply pitched pyramidal roof with a high lattice-glazed octagonal lantern and spirelet with a spike finial. The corridor's first two bays are slightly higher and separated by a buttress from the five-bay part, which has steps up to double boarded doors in a two-centred arch in a moulded surround. Each bay has paired cusped lights except for a single light in the right bay under the dripmoulds. Between sections the overlapping gable coping has gablets on the feet.

Procurator's Rooms and Museum

This is built of thin courses of squared sandstone with ashlar dressings and plinth; the roof is of graduated Lakeland slates with stone gable copings, in Gothic style. The two-storey museum block is 13 bays long, linking the west range of the main house to the two-storey, three-bay deep Procurator's Rooms. The 13-bay museum range has, in alternate bays on the ground floor of each elevation, cusped transomed three-light windows under depressed two-centred dripmoulds rising from a continuous string course. Each bay of the south elevation has paired cusped transomed lights in gabled half dormers on the first floor. The north elevation is similar but with half dormers in alternate bays only. The ninth bay of the south elevation has a projecting three-sided bay at ground floor, and the eighth bay of the north elevation has a corbelled external chimney supported on paired buttresses.

The west elevation of the Procurator's Rooms has cusped tracery in two-light ground-floor windows, a transomed square-headed first-floor window at right, and a high corbelled external chimney at left with a niche in the chimney at eaves level. A half dormer at right contains a transomed two-light window with a trefoil in the gable peak. The right return gable has paired two-light ground-floor windows under a traceried oriel flanked by niches, and a transomed square-headed window with a trefoil in the gable peak. All windows are under dripmoulds; the chimney corbels are lion masks. The whole rises from a massive double-chamfered plinth which is continuous with diagonal buttresses. The roof copings have gablets on kneelers and fleur-de-lys moulded gable finials; the chimney has paired octagonal shafts.

Interior

The entrance hall has a triple arcade with keyed arches on pilasters and impost bands, a wide stair with lower steps free-standing on a clustered shaft and a cantilevered upper part, and a double wreath and curtail. A Gothic niche opposite the entrance contains a statue of Our Lady, Seat of Wisdom by A. B. Wall (1879), replacing a former doorway to the internal courtyard. Six-panel doors with original brass fittings are found in the corridors.

The Professors' Dining Room at the north of the west range was decorated and furnished by E. W. Pugin. His Gothic-style stone chimneypiece was resited when the room was extended in 1873–8. It features ornate brass hinges and lock scutcheons, and linenfold panelling on doors and window shutters.

The north range Gothic-style refectory has a stone chimneypiece by A. W. N. Pugin with a relief of angels with a coat of arms above, and original gasoliers converted for electric light. Stained glass (11 windows) by A. W. N. Pugin and J. Hardman and Co dates from 1848. The refectory extension to the west and the floor of white Sicilian and black Galway marble are by E. W. Pugin, designed in 1868 but not executed until 1873.

The Exhibition Hall by Joseph Hansom (1848), the former chapel, contains tiered seating facing a stage at the west end. It is elaborately decorated with panelled dado, stencilled ceiling and hammerbeam roof, the beams carved with life-size figures of saint-patrons of arts and sciences, the trusses with ornate arch-braces. Heraldic glass is by A. W. N. Pugin and Hardman. Panelling on the stage features copper reliefs by Edwin Bonney (a professor at the college).

The north range corridor has a wood-bracketed ceiling with timber traceried spandrels.

A Gothic stone stair rises behind a three-light glazed traceried screen to the first floor from the north end of the east range. The first-floor dormitory of the east range retains its timber lining from 1925 but now contains modern partitions. Largely complete timber partitioned dormitories survive on the top floor of the west range (1894) and above the refectory (1902).

The ground floor of the infirmary has an entrance hall at one time used for dining (now containing a modern glazed internal porch) with former wards on either side. The rear of the hall is separated from the stairs by a simple screen formed of a pair of arches supported on a single clustered shaft. The timber close-tread stair rises around an open well to a galleried first floor. The newels all have simple Gothic finials and the stick balusters are chamfered with stops. The rooms are largely intact, retaining their picture rails but lacking their fireplaces. In some cases they contain modern timber subdivisions.

The interior of the chemical laboratory retains later toilet cubicles, fittings and glazed tiling, while the corridor leading to it retains dado panelling and a scissor-braced roof with shouldered-lintelled doorways.

The interior of the former museum has painted plaster and a ceiling with timber coffering. The bays are marked by elaborate cusped brackets rising from chamfered wall-posts supported on decorated stone corbels. A modern screen separates the two easternmost bays, and a modern stair rises to the ground floor of the Procurator's Rooms at the west end.

Subsidiary Features

The stable building, circa 1855, probably by Edward Welby Pugin, is built of coursed squared sandstone with ashlar dressings beneath a pitched graduated slate roof with gables at east and west ends. The south façade is one-and-a-half storeys high. To the left is a door beneath a depressed two-centred arch, flanked by small windows. To the right is a large sliding timber door, apparently added as part of the conversion to a motor house. Above is a gabled taking-in door and another small window. The interior was not inspected, but it is understood that the stable fittings and partitions were removed when the building was converted to a motor house.

The terrace retaining wall and parapet, and steps with flanking walls, in front of St Cuthbert's College main block, date from 1852–3 and are by Joseph Hansom. They are built of coursed squared sandstone with ashlar dressings in Gothic style. The terrace extends the length of the main college building and has central steps up from the garden. The parapet and walls flanking the steps are ashlar with chamfered squared pilasters and triple double-chamfered coping. Chamfered piers at the foot of the steps and ends of the terrace have similar coping.

In front of the south façade of the infirmary is a low terrace with a set of stone steps.