Former Charterhouse School

This former Board School was built in 1881 to designs by William Botterill for Hull School Board. It is constructed of brick with stone dressings and slate roofs in the Gothic Revival style.

Site Layout

The school site forms a rough L-shape, extending from Charterhouse Lane to the north to Wincolmlee to the east. A single-storey infants' school building extends from Charterhouse Lane, with its entrance on the left accessed from a path that continues to the girls' and infants' playground at the rear. Beyond this playground stands the two-storey main school building, which faces Wincolmlee across a second playground that was formerly the boys' playground. The boys' school occupied the ground floor with its entrance to the east, while the girls' school occupied the upper floor with its entrance and staircase on the north side, reached from the girls' and infants' playground. On the far east side of the boys' playground is the boys' toilet block. Within the girls' and infants' playground there is another toilet block, an outbuilding that formerly housed a copper and coal store, and a later single-storey building identified as a cookhouse. The entire school site is surrounded by a brick boundary wall.

Infants' School Building

The single-storey infants' school building has the main schoolroom forming the principal part, with the gable end facing Charterhouse Lane. Off-centre to the left is a hipped-roof porch containing the entry vestibule and cloakroom. Off-centre to the right is a short wing with a low gable containing an office and store. To the rear, a cross wing contains a pair of classrooms flanking a corridor to the rear entrance. Windows are typically wooden-framed cross casements with one-over-one lower lights and two-over-two upper lights that can be tilted inwards. Sills and lintels are stone with a plain chamfer, with the brickwork to the sides of the windows similarly chamfered. The roof features small, ornate timber gabled ventilators, with the gablettes of the cross wing roof also forming ventilators. Cast iron rainwater goods are fitted throughout, with guttering supported and partly concealed by moulded and corbelled eaves. The principal part of the building is topped by an ornate octagonal bell tower with a steeply pitched slate roof, crowned by a cross in ornamented ironwork.

The principal elevation is the gable end facing Charterhouse Lane. At its centre is a triple window with mullions and double transoms, all in stone, flanked by single windows with similar double transoms. The lower lights are one-over-one, while the square upper and middle lights are two-over-two. Above the windows, a stone band at eaves level extends upwards above the central window to carry the embossed words "BOARD SCHOOL" flanking a coat of arms. Above this is a stone traceried wheel window beneath a slightly two-centred brick arch with a stone hood mould. In the peak of the gable is a pair of small lancet windows with ventilation louvres. The central window is flanked by buttresses that are reduced to brick pilasters from eaves level upwards. The gable wall rises slightly above the roof line and has triangular section coping with a step above the eaves and the two pilasters, and a stone finial at the apex.

Inside, the building retains original doors and panelled doorcases, though some doors have modern glass upper panels. Blocked fireplaces survive in the main schoolroom and office. The main schoolroom has been subdivided with a stud partition wall and its timber roof structure is obscured by a modern suspended ceiling.

Main School Building

The main school building was designed with the boys' school on the ground floor and the similarly laid-out girls' school above. Each is arranged around a T-shaped main schoolroom, with the boys' entrance to the front (east) and the girls' entrance, reached via an internal staircase, to the side that faces the infants' school (north). These entrances, each with a classroom to the side, are covered with a double roof with gablettes that is slightly lower than the cross-gabled roof covering the main schoolroom. Tucked into the angle of the T behind the stair is another classroom beneath a gabled wing, with two further classrooms forming a gabletted cross wing at the foot of the T at the west end of the building. On the south side, tucked into the angle of the T, is a short gabled wing for a master's room. Windows, roofs, eaves and internal joinery are similarly detailed to the infants' school, though the roof ventilators are slightly less elaborate. Instead of a central bell tower, there is a masonry bellcote rising from the north gable wall of the main schoolroom. An added single-storey flat-roofed extension is not of special interest.

The principal elevation faces east and features a gable that is very slightly broken forward from the head of the T. This has a triple window at first floor with stone mullions and transoms that rises as a stone traceried arched window into the gable above. The window has a slightly two-centred arched stone hood mould above, with a pair of louvred lancet windows in the peak of the gable. To the front of the entrance and classroom wing to the right is an entrance vestibule with a gable above the door, hipped to the right. Above the door, the stone lintel is embossed "BOYS", and above this is a two-centred arched fanlight with wheel tracery below a stone hood mould.

The interior is similarly detailed to the infants' school.

Subsidiary Buildings and Structures

The school is enclosed by a brick wall with an arched, pedimented entrance onto Wincolmlee, the pediment carrying a stone embossed with "BOYS". There are detached toilet blocks in both playgrounds; the girls' toilet block has been modified. In the infants' playground there is also a detached range of sheds originally for a copper and coal store, as well as a four-bay single-storey building with a central stack identified as a cookhouse. This features two-over-four windows with timber transoms, with openings matching those of the rest of the school.

History

Charterhouse Lane, the second oldest surviving Hull School Board school, was built in 1881 and designed by William Botterill, founder member and architect for the Hull School Board. The original architect's floor plans, dated 1880, still survive and show that the school is little altered. The school opened in 1882 for 251 boys, 251 girls and 243 infants. In 1950 it became Charterhouse High School, a secondary modern, with 150 boys attending in 1963.

Charterhouse Lane School is a very well preserved example of the first wave of Board Schools built in Hull. It is very little altered both externally and internally and is well detailed, displaying high quality craftsmanship. The complex roof structures are of particular interest. The survival of the boundary walls and outbuildings is also notable in a national context. Although the main school building has a slightly lower level of architectural ornamentation than the infants' school, apart from the later cookhouse the whole school complex is of a single design, and the survival of the whole complex is a major factor in the national significance of the school.