Cavendish primary school including detached annexe and front boundary wall, gatepiers, gates and railings

A local authority education committee primary school begun in 1904 and designed by Ernest Woodhouse in Jacobean Revival style.

The building is constructed with steel beams, concrete floors, Ruabon brick, buff terracotta dressings, and blue slate. It forms a landmark as one of the largest buildings in the Albert Park Conservation Area, with an H-plan featuring longer rear wings to the side ranges and a detached annexe in the playground.

The school is of two tall storeys with a mezzanine in the front of the east and west wings, presented in Jacobean Revival style with pedimented gables, buff terracotta head-and-sill bands to both storeys and further banding to the first floor. The front, which faces north-east, is symmetrical with a central range flanked by projecting wings. The central range comprises three bays divided by pilaster-buttresses; the outer bays have two lights per floor and a blocked eaves cornice, while the central bay has a wide first-floor window rising through the eaves to a terracotta semi-circular pediment, open and containing the City of Manchester's arms in relief. The wings have triangular-pedimented two-window centres flanked by slightly-projecting square towers with parapets. The parapets and gables have relief cartouches. The mezzanine spandrels have Art Nouveau reliefs with cherubic faces, and a foundation stone is positioned at the right. Most windows are modern replacements in uPVC, though some original timber windows survive and have been internalised.

The north bays of the east and west walls match the front walls of the projecting front wings, with square towers flanking a pedimented centre. At ground-floor level are paired terracotta double doorways, each with an open semi-circular pediment containing a round window with festooned surround. Towards the rear, the bands continue and windows are grouped under further pediments with keystones in the tympana, including in the rear extensions which match the earlier work. Each wing has an ogee-domed octagonal ridge cupola. Rainwater goods are replicas of the originals.

The rear wall is of Ruabon brick in the centre and common bricks to the inner walls of the projecting wings, with buff terracotta head-and-sill bands to both floors throughout. In the angles are flat-roofed canted two-storey bays with brick parapets. Between these are the windows of the halls, originally grouped in five pairs but now with single windows at either end. The hall range has a hipped roof and a third ridge cupola. The gable end walls of the wings are blind and rendered.

The detached annexe is single-storey in the same style, gabled at the east and west ends with a segmental pediment, shaped kneelers and circular window in a cross-band above a three-light window. The ridge has a cupola and there are two tall chimney stacks on the north side. The entrances in either end have a quoined surround and a shaped hood broken by a giant keystone. Doors and windows are replacements.

Internally, the school retains much of its original floor plan with stacked halls in the rear of the cross-range and staff rooms to the front; classrooms, stairs and a mezzanine in the front part of the side ranges, and classrooms throughout the rest of the side ranges. The classrooms are divided from the halls by walls with original glazing and doors, with brass fittings. Parquet floor survives throughout, covered in the classrooms. The classrooms retain tiled fireplaces and dadoes with attractive green and gold Art Nouveau flowers, although mostly painted over, and one original slate blackboard. Tiled dadoes also survive in the stairwells, corridors and in the halls, where they have been partially cleaned of paint. The stairs retain original handrails and window-railings. The halls each retain built-in cupboards and a remarkable fireplace at either end, featuring a green-glazed tile surround, pulvinated frieze and pediment, yellow-glazed tile fireback, and original grates. The upper hall is open to the roof, which has arched steel trusses. A service elevator survives with its mechanism in the north-west corner and descends to the basement where further original joinery survives.

The annexe retains some original doors, tiled dadoes and a gas-light fitting; its ceilings are concealed by suspended tiles. The Manchester Board Schools book states that it also has parquet floors, which may survive beneath the current coverings.

The front boundary wall is of brick and terracotta with decorative piers, Art Nouveau railings and gates.