Jesmond Road Primary School, Master'S House, Play Shed And Surrounding Wall

Jesmond Road Primary School, Master's House, Play Shed and Surrounding Wall

A board school designed in 1895 by E Percy-Hinde of Liverpool and completed in 1902, opening on 7 September 1903. The foundation stone was laid on 18 June 1902. The architect, who was President of the Liverpool Architectural Society from 1915 to 1919, won a competition to design the school. J Robson Smith was Clerk of Works. The school opened under the headship of Janet C Mackay with six additional teachers and 256 pupils registered on the first day. Originally known as West Hartlepool Board School, it was built as a board school to serve the local community.

The main school building is constructed of red and grey brick with terracotta and glazed brick dressings beneath slate roofs. It is designed in the Queen Anne Revival style and comprises ground and first-floor central halls flanked on two long sides by classrooms which open directly into them. Specialist blocks, head teachers' and staff rooms are positioned on other sides. The building rises two to three storeys with shaped gables.

The south elevation is the principal façade and comprises three bays. The central bay is recessed and features a shaped gable, with a modern entrance inserted into a former window opening, flanked by tall windows with three stepped lights above. Narrow wing walls, each with an original Infant's entrance, link this central bay to two projecting end bays. Each end bay has a blind central section up to second-floor level framed by strip pilasters and flanked by narrow rectangular windows, with a third floor occupied by a two-light window flanked by single lights. Attached to the side of each end bay is a single-storey flat-roofed modern toilet block. The right and left returns consist of two-storey blocks formed by five identical gabled bays articulated by strip pilasters, with tall three-light windows on each floor. The first-floor windows are stepped. The gables are shaped and feature round windows and narrow bands. The rear north elevation includes entrances for girls' access to the Cookery block and for boys' access to the Manual Instruction block, together with a kitchen range with a tall tapering brick chimney rising above the buildings with glazed brick decoration. Boys' and girls' access into their respective playgrounds is through large semi-circular arches picked out in glazed red brick. All entrances bear scrolled plaques denoting Infants, Girls and Boys. Windows are mostly original timber sliding sashes, and roofs are pitched with a large central roof ventilator.

The interior features a large central hall on each floor flanked by classrooms which retain original boarding to dado level with painted plaster above and have original cupboards and doors. Many moveable timber and glass partitions between individual classrooms are retained. Stairs to the upper floor are simple with original full-height cupboards on each landing. The trusses forming the roof of the upper hall have decorative metal brackets. An atrium in the centre of the parquet floor, designed to allow light to enter the hall below, has been infilled. The headmaster's and staff rooms on the second floor at the front of the school each retain their original fireplace. At the entrance to the first floor hall there is a First World War Roll of Honour. The specialist classrooms offering cookery and manual instruction are housed in blocks at the rear of the building.

At the south-east corner of the site stands a two-storey, two-bay master's house with a pyramidal roof surmounted by a tall central chimney. Its windows and doors are modern replacements. An original six-bay play shed with a hipped slate roof is situated within the former Infants' yard at the south-west corner of the site. A low brick perimeter wall surmounted by modern railings surrounds the site on all sides, pierced by three main entrances flanked by plain brick piers for boys, girls and infants, each providing access to their respective playgrounds.

The footprint of the building remains as built according to comparison with the 1919 Ordnance Survey map, with the exception of small toilet blocks attached to the south-west and south-east corners of the main façade. Twenty-first-century insertions include a lift and an adapted entrance with a visitor waiting area.