Bury School Of Arts And Crafts

Bury School of Arts and Crafts, now an Adult Education Centre, was built in 1893. Designed by Borough Engineer Joshua Cartwright for Bury Borough Council, it occupies a long, irregular site bounded by Broad Street, Moss Street, and Back Haymarket Street. The building is constructed of Accrington brick with the principal elevation faced in Cullingworth limestone, and has Westmorland slate roofs.

The rooms are arranged around a central spine corridor, with the main stairs centrally located on the eastern side. The Broad Street range includes top-lit studios, while a north-lit weaving shed, part of a sequence of textile instruction rooms, is located to the west. The Chemical Laboratories are almost detached for safety reasons. Physical Sciences rooms, offices, lecture theatres, and libraries are situated along the lower Haymarket Street (west) side. The school was reputedly among the best equipped Technical Schools in northern England.

The building is in a Free Renaissance style. The north-facing Broad Street elevation is entirely stone, encompassing a basement, first floor, and attic studios. It is five bays wide, with a projecting central porch featuring a pedimented attic storey. The principal floors have three-light windows, with the basement area protected by contemporary railings with low stone piers and moulded caps. Rustication is visible on the basement level, and sculptural friezes adorn the window bays and intermediate pilasters, which break the moulded cornice and are surmounted by shaped finials. These friezes represent various Arts, Crafts, and Applied Sciences. The central doorway has a swan-necked pediment on console brackets, framing the words "TECHNICAL SCHOOLS". Elaborate double gates provide access.

The rear elevation (Moss Street, facing the Museum & Art Gallery) is stone, single-storied, with three bays, each featuring a three-light window with mullions and a transom. A shaped gable wall containing the municipal coat of arms sits above the right-hand bays. The side elevations are brick, irregularly fenestrated with various Flemish gables. Back Haymarket Street features a full-height recessed canted bay window illuminating the street. The southwest elevation (facing Sparrow Park) is plain, and there were unexecuted proposals to extend the building at that point.

A tall, battered, square-section stack with fluted stone panels below the cornice gathers all flues.

Interiors feature many well-preserved doors and door surrounds, areas of wall tiling, mosaic flooring, elaborate wall radiators with terms, and coloured glass. An open well stair has decorative cast-iron work. Specialized rooms include a textile instruction room, which is identical in design but smaller in scale to contemporary weaving sheds. The building exhibits strong Group Value, particularly in relation to the Museum & Arts Gallery.