Strand Street School

GRIMSBY

TA2710SE STRAND STREET 699-1/12/66 (South side) Strand Street School

II

School. 1910-12 by HC Scaping of Grimsby; Henry Marrows, builder, for Grimsby Education Authority. Later C20 alterations and additions. Red brick with white brick and stone dressings; glazed bricks to base of ground floor. Tarmac roof covering. Approximately rectangular on plan, with projecting stair turrets to centre of east side and to south-west corner. EXTERIOR: 2 storeys with rooftop playground. Plinth. Main fronts have blind arcading to first floor with recessed panels to each bay flanked by pilasters. North front to Stand Street: 4 wide bays, each with tripartite windows beneath segmental brick arches, the wider central light with a keystone. 2-course white brick flush impost band. Former entrance to first bay has ashlar architrave, modillioned cornice and hood; original 4-pane overlight with later C20 inserted window and brick blocking below. First-floor windows similar to ground floor, but with projecting sills linked by a 2-course flush white brick band. All windows have wood mullions and transoms, glazing bars and stone sills. Prominent downpipes with decorative rainwater-heads between bays. Pilasters carry continuous entablature with moulded brick cornices. Coped parapet with high walls ramped up to piers rising from the first-floor pilasters, the parapet walls with a single large round-headed keyed arched opening to each bay containing an ornate ironwork grille with a scrollwork fan design. Some parapet piers serve as chimney stacks. West elevation: 6 narrower bays with 2-light and single-light windows; segmental-headed entrance in 5th bay with steps to door beneath tall narrow overlight. 6th bay has foundation stone in architrave with inscription dated 15th December 1910, recording architect, builder etc. Parapet on this side has 3 keyed arched openings with iron grilles, flanked by single similar blind panels. South elevation: stair turret to left and 3 bays to right with similar details to other fronts. East stair turret has single first-floor windows and a top stage with a keyed round-arched grilled opening to the east side, a single keyed oculus to each return, and a plain coped parapet. Rooftop playground has an open shelter on the south side beneath a pitched roof flanked by short hipped sections.

INTERIOR: altered in late C20, with suspended ceilings, but still retaining original features such as pointed arched openings with keystones initialled "SS", glazed brick walling, doors in architraves. Inscribed plaque inside west entrance recording opening of school on 11 January 1912 by Lady Doughty. A very good example of an Edwardian school, its architecture manifesting a particularly successful adaptation of the plan form, with its roof-top playground (Ambler RW: Great Grimsby Fishing Heritage: a brief for a trail: Grimsby Borough Council: 1990-: 41-2).

Listing NGR: TA2797410330