Former Joicey Road Open Air School

FORMER JOICEY ROAD OPEN AIR SCHOOL

This open-air school was built in 1937 to designs by F H Patterson, the Borough Engineer. It stands as a well-preserved example of the inter-war open-air school movement, which aimed to improve children's health through fresh air and outdoor education.

Construction and Materials

The buildings are constructed in stretcher bond red brick with brick dressings. The roofs are hipped and pyramidal with deep eaves and tall brick stacks.

Layout

The school occupies a sloping site aligned east to west. The main building is T-shaped with a basement under the right-hand range. The front range contains administrative functions with the main dining hall projecting behind. A caretaker's house stands immediately to the right. To the left is a large three-sided corner rest shed. Three detached square classrooms are staggered across the site, all linked to each other and the main building by covered walkways.

Main Building: Exterior

The north (main) elevation is single storey with hipped roofs. It comprises five bays, with those at the ends and centre projecting forward. The central bay has three full-height round-arched windows with brick detailing and projecting eaves formed of tumbled-in brickwork. The other bays have rows of three square windows, all fitted with 12-light wooden casements. Attached to either end of the main building are slightly lower round-arched boys' and girls' entrances leading into attached flat-roofed latrines lit by three rectangular six-light windows.

The south (rear) elevation has a large projecting central wing forming the dining hall. This has a centrally placed door flanked by four-light folding windows. To the right is a single-storey range with windows of various sizes. To the left is a two-storey range incorporating the central heating system and boiler house on the ground floor.

Main Building: Interior

The interior retains its original plan. The front range contains cloakrooms, toilets, shower rooms and medical rooms separated from a specialist classroom, head teacher's room, staff room, kitchen and scullery by a central corridor with roof lights. Most rooms are open to the roof, exposing the complex roof structure. Original fixtures and fittings survive including flooring, a fireplace in the medical inspection room, showers, toilet partitions, coat pegs, original doors and fitted cupboards.

The large dining hall occupies the main axis of the building, forming a single large space with a temporary classroom at the south end that could be separated by sliding partitions. Three sides are glazed with glazed brick window sills and a plinth course. The fourth side is formed by original paired wooden doors and cupboards. The roof is composed of a series of arched braced roof trusses supported on brick and tile with decorative corbels, with common rafters spanning between the wall plate and ceiling level.

Rest Sheds: Exterior

The rest sheds form a single-storey range of fifteen bays created by pairs of brick piers under a hipped roof. Except for paired bays at the north and south ends (forming a temporary classroom and bed store respectively), these sheds were formerly open to the west. The end walls have identical paired openings with sliding folding wooden screens and narrow entrances. At the time of inspection, four of the formerly open bays had been fitted with folding doors, and seven had their lower parts infilled with brick and fitted with large four-light folding windows with glazing bars. The sheds are attached to the main building by a wooden covered walkway of timber slats supported on wooden columns.

Rest Sheds: Interior

The interior forms a single large space arranged around a corner site with glazed panels to the front and end walls and three groups of three small windows to the rear. The exposed roofs are formed by a series of king post roof trusses. The temporary classroom at the north end has simple wooden bookshelves.

Classrooms: Exterior

The three classrooms are single-storey square buildings with pyramidal roofs, brick plinths and brick corner piers. The north sides are blind with an entrance in the north-east corner. The east, south and west sides each comprise a single large rectangular eight-light folding window with glazing bars and top lights.

Classrooms: Interior

Each classroom forms a single space glazed on three sides with an exposed roof.

Historical Context

The open-air school movement was founded in Switzerland in the late 19th century. The first English example opened at Bostall Woods in south-east London in 1908, modelled on an 1904 open-air school in a pine forest at Charlottenberg in the suburbs of Berlin. Further schools followed in London and Bradford in 1908, all based in pre-existing buildings with large grounds. Uffculme School at King's Heath, Birmingham, built in 1911, pioneered the characteristic staggered classroom plan. By 1914 open-air schools had been built in eight cities. By 1923, largely due to the efforts of Margaret McMillan, pioneer of 20th-century English infant and nursery schools, there were 23 open-air nursery schools. The movement continued during the inter-war period with further examples in London, Bristol, Newcastle and other cities. By 1939 there were 127 open-air schools. After the Second World War, with the advent of antibiotics and the decline of tuberculosis, few new open-air schools were built. Instead, open-air principles were incorporated into general English school planning.

Gateshead first considered providing an open-air school in 1925. Land on Joicey Road was acquired in 1926 at a cost of £2,480. Plans were prepared by the Borough Engineer's Department and a tender from Messrs Alex Anderson was provisionally accepted in July 1931. However, the financial crisis of 1931 intervened and the project remained in abeyance for four years until revived in 1935. Tenders were re-advertised and that of Messrs Alex Anderson was again accepted. Building began in 1935 on what was then called Whinney House. The school opened as Joicey Road Open Air School on 25th May 1937 by the Mayor of Gateshead, Alderman James White. The school's first head was Miss E R Telford.

The completed buildings accommodated 150 children of both sexes aged between six and 14, divided into five or six classes. The school day ran from 9:30am to 4:15pm. The diet comprised pasteurised milk and a biscuit in the morning, a two-course meal at 12:15pm followed by a rest period on beds in the rest shed. After afternoon school in summer, the children received another meal of pasteurised milk, brown bread and butter and, when possible, fruit, followed by free play until 5:30pm. In winter, the children returned home at 4:15pm immediately after school. Classes were conducted in the open air when possible. The classrooms with folding windows on three sides were only used in bad weather.

Note

The caretaker's house, air raid shelter, walls, railings, gates and remaining pier do not have special interest.