Bury School Of Arts And Crafts

The following building shall be added:

SD 8010 NW BROAD STREET

1/75 Bury School of Arts and Crafts

GV II Former Technical School, now (1991) an Adult Education Centre. Dated 1893. Designed by the Borough Engineer,Joshua Cartwright, for Bury Borough Council. Accrington brick with principal elevation's faced with Cullingworth limestone; Westmorland slate roofs. Occupies a long irregular site bounded by Broad Street, Moss Street and Back Haymarket Street. Rooms lead off from a central spine corridor (with main stairs set centrally to one side (E))and include top-lit studios on the Broad Street (entrance) range, a north-lit weaving shed to the W (part of a sequence of textile instruction rooms); almost detached for safety reasons are the Chemical Laboratories; to the lower Haymarket Street, W, side are the physical Sciences rooms, along with various offices, lecture theatres and libraries. It was reputed to be among the best equipped Technical Schools in northern England. Free Renaissance Style. Broad Street elevation (N): all stone, basement, 1st floor and attic studios. 5 bays, the centre projected as a porch with pedimented attic storey. 3- light windows to principal floors, the basement area protected by contemporary railings with low stone piers with moulded caps. Rustication to basement, Sculptural friezes to window bays and intermediate pilasters (the latter breaking the moulded cornice and surmounted by shaped finials), the former representing the various Arts, Crafts and Applied Sciences. The central doorway has a Swan-necked pediment on console brackets which frame the words 'TECHNICAL SCHOOLS'. Elaborate double gates. Rear elevation (Moss Street, facing the Museum & Art Gallery), also stone, single-storeyed, 3 bays each with 3-light window with mullions and transom and, over the too right-hand bays, a shaped gable wall containing the municipal coat of arms. Side elevations, brick, irregularly fenestrated with various Flemish gables; Back Haymarket Street contains full-height recessed canted bay window that lights the Main Street. Plain elevations to S.W. (facing Sparrow Park); there were unexecuted proposals to extend the building at this point. All flues gathered in tall battered square-section stack with fluted stone panels below cornice. Interior: many well-preserved doors and door surrounds, areas of wall tiling, mosaic flooring, elaborate wall radiators with terms, coloured glass etc. Open well stairs with decorative cast- iron work. Various specialised rooms include a textile instruction room which is identical (but on a miniature scale) to contemporary weaving sheds. The building has strong Group Value with the Museum &. Arts Gallery (ref.1/55)

Listing NGR: SD8035210668