Police Training College

Police Training College

This building on Nantwich Road is a former Ursuline convent and school designed around 1910 in the Arts and Crafts style, drawing on the architectural language of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, particularly the work of Philip Webb. It incorporates French gothic references—including tracery and fleurs de lis—appropriate to the Ursuline nuns who founded the convent in 1906, combined with Arts and Crafts Dutch and Queen Anne styling reminiscent of early 20th-century mass housing, characterised by small-pane sash windows.

The building is constructed of red and brown brick laid in decorative header and Flemish bonds, with moulded brick surrounds framing doorways, windows and tall arched recesses to the main facades. Carved stone panels and mouldings in gothic style appear in the entrance bay, above the doorway and windows, and in the gables. Stone gable copings and carved finials complete the stonework, while plain stone sills, lintels and sill bands provide understated detailing. Timber ornamental barge boards are fitted to alternate dormer windows, and the roof is covered in grey slate.

The building is L-shaped, comprising south and west wings, with three storeys plus attic accommodation. The main south-facing facade of the south wing is divided into four bays containing 4, 3, 2 and 10 first-floor windows respectively. Bays 1 and 3 project slightly and are gabled. The right-hand two windows of bay 4 are obscured by a later two-storey addition. The entrance sits in bay 3, featuring a narrow doorway to the right and a cross window to the left, beneath a tympanum with cusped tracery under a semi-circular moulded string, with diamond-pattern leaded lights. Bay 1 displays carved panels with lilies—representing both the French fleur de lis and the Annunciation of the Virgin Mary—above the ground-floor windows, with defaced fountain stones at ground level. The lily motif also appears between the windows of bay 4.

The left return, forming the west wing, contains four bays, each with two paired windows set within a full-height arched recess. A three-storey staircase bay is positioned to the far left, set back from the main line. The right bay features a stepped brick dormer gable, with windows divided by a central full-height chimney ornamented with a keyed arched recess. The rear facades of both wings have paired windows in full-height round-arched recesses and dormer windows, which lack the ornamental detailing of the front elevations. Two tall staircase and lift towers have been added to the north wall, along with single-storey additions that are not included in this listing. The east gable end displays mouldings matching those of the main facades and has a glazed double door to the right.

Interior spaces include a main entrance opening into a staircase hall. The staircase has a cast-iron balustrade with a ramped handrail and balusters of reeded naturalistic design. The south wing at ground-floor level, towards its east end, was reported to have functioned as a pupils' chapel and features paired cusped lights to the south windows and a blocked single-light window in the rear wall. A corridor with blind arcading is also present.

The Ursuline Sisters, a French order of nuns, founded a convent at Crewe in 1906. This building does not appear on the Ordnance Survey map of 1911 but is recorded as having been built around 1910. The school was recognised as a secondary school by the Crewe Board of Education in 1922. During the second half of the 20th century the building was converted to serve as the Cheshire Constabulary Training Centre and Maintenance headquarters. At the time of listing it had become the Police Training College, with extensive accommodation subsequently added to the north.