Chapel, School And Masters House At The Harris Orphanage

The building comprises a chapel and school with an integral Master's house, built between 1885 and 1888 by Benjamin Sykes of Garlick, Park and Sykes, for the trustees of E.R. Harris. It is the principal building on an estate of children's homes. The construction is of Accrington red brick with sandstone bands and dressings, topped with steeply pitched Cumberland slate roofs with red ridging tiles.

The design is elaborated in an H-plan: the 5-bay school has a cross wing to the south, with the chapel built as a cross wing to the north, incorporating a tower in the angle. A Master's house is attached to the south end of the school. The four-stage tower, in High Victorian Gothic style, contains the main entrance, with a richly moulded surround to the door, featuring a shaped lintel lettered “BOYS”. Above the door is a large triangular namestone inscribed “THE HARRIS ORPHANAGE”. The second stage has quadripartite arched windows, with the outer lights blocked. The third stage, set back slightly and above a panelled stone band, has two-light belfry louvres topped by corbel tables and flanked by tourelles. Between the tops of the tourelles are clock faces within gablets, finished with finials. These, alongside the stone pinnacles to the tourelles, form a cluster around a short, slated spire.

The chapel, to the right, is in a simpler Gothic style, buttressed, with a stepped triple window in the projecting gable, featuring foliated capitals and cusped lights. The return wall has a porch in the second bay, with one triple arched window, and three coupled arched windows in the others.

The main range of the school, comprising 5 bays on a single storey, is in a Vernacular Revival style. A gabled centre bay has a large mullioned and transomed window, with a 4-light mullioned window in each of the other bays. A door at the left end has a decorated surround, the lintel lettered “GIRLS”. A projecting left wing has a large mullioned and transomed window flanked by single lights, all with segmental heads.

The Master’s house, set back to the left end, is L-shaped and two storeys tall, in a similar style, with gabled wings at right angles, and a full-height gabled porch in the angle. A flat-roofed outer porch of wooden mullions, transoms, and leaded glazing fronts the porch. The interior is now of less interest.