Lancaster Girls' Grammar School

LANCASTER

SD46SE REGENT STREET 1685-1/1/258 (East side) Lancaster Girls' Grammar School

II

Girls' grammar school. 1912-14. By Henry Littler. Free Edwardian Baroque style. Snecked sandstone with ashlar dressings, and slate roofs. Double-depth plan with 2 parallel ridges, and 2 cross-wings to the front, with a separate, plainer block behind. (The further 2-storey extension 1994 is not included.) 3 storeys and 11 bays. The symmetrical facade has a 5-bay centre recessed between 3-bay cross-wings. Each of these has, on the ground floor, two 3-light mullioned windows and, on the first floor, 2 wide windows with wooden mullions and transoms and glazing bars giving 36 panes each, all under relieving arches; on the second floor, under an open triangular pediment, is a small window with a wooden mullion and glazing bars giving 12 panes. The inner bay of each cross-wing contains an octagonal stair turret, lit at the landing levels by a pair of mullioned windows, with lead cames giving a diamond pattern, and capped by a tall battlemented parapet and an octagonal cupola. The central section, accommodating the school hall, is recessed behind a lower, 2-storey, block which contains the original entrance, flanked by offices. The entrance on the first floor is approached by steps which start as a double flight, parallel to the front, and then lead in a single flight at right angles to the doorway; this stairway is protected by wrought-iron railings with an overthrow at the bottom of each flight which carries a square lantern. The doorway has a round-headed arch, with rusticated voussoirs and a heavy keystone, set between Ionic columns which bear an open segmental pediment enfolding the achievement of arms of the Borough of Lancaster. On either side of the entrance is a canted bay with a 3-light mullioned window, flanked by smaller windows. The 5 clerestorey windows of the hall can be seen above, with splayed jambs into which their segmental heads with rusticated voussoirs die. Between the first and second, and fourth and fifth, windows rise 2 pairs of octagonal chimney stacks which frame an octagonal louvre on the hall roof. INTERIOR: the 2-storey hall, entered through a round-headed doorway with a keystone, is separated by square piers from the corridors which surround it on 3 sides and both levels. The ceiling has a barrel-vaulted central section which is carried on curved principal rafters rising from the tie beams, which are supported on strongly-projecting brackets.

Listing NGR: SD4749761382