The Doughty Centre, Adjoining Screen Wall And Former Fire Station

GRIMSBY

TA2709SW TOWN HALL SQUARE 699-1/22/70 (South side) The Doughty Centre, adjoining screen wall and former Fire Station

GV II

Shown on OS map as Doughty Museum. Girls school, now Adult Education Centre, adjoining screen wall, and former Fire Station now St John's Ambulance Rooms. School 1863, with later C19 Fire Station, for Grimsby Corporation; later alterations and additions. Yellow brick with brown brick and ashlar dressings. Concrete tile roof. L-shaped on plan: with school to front and Fire Station addition to rear. EXTERIOR: former school has single-storey front section of 4 by one bays. Front has projecting entrance bay to left and 3-bay symmetrical section to right with central pedimented bay breaking forward. Channelled and banded rustication with bands picked out in brown brick. Plinth; angle pilasters above sill band. Round-headed entrance has recessed 2-fold panelled door beneath original 2-pane fanlight and moulded ashlar arch with fluted impost bands and tall stepped keystone. Section to right has continuous projecting ashlar sill band and windows in recessed panels: 3 closely-set windows to pedimented bay and pairs of widely-spaced windows to side bays, all are narrow 2/2 sashes with margin lights beneath segmental brick arches with tall ashlar keystones linked by a continuous string course. Bold wooden modillioned cornice. Entrance bay has bracketed ashlar panel below cornice with relief inscription "ERECTED AD 1863", and blocking course with raised central triangular-headed section and relief inscription "GIRLS SCHOOL". Hipped roof. Right return has similar details: 3 closely-spaced windows to left; recessed 2-window section to right with door inserted beneath the left window. Screen wall adjoining to front left, approximately 7 metres long, has plinth, piers, channelled rustication, stone coping and 2 former doorways blocked with matching brick. Former Fire Station. Similar style and materials. 2 storeys, 3 bays with narrower bay to far right. Rusticated pilasters between bays, keyed segmental-arched plate-glass first-floor windows beneath keyed segmental arches linked by a string course; moulded wooden eaves cornice, hipped concrete tile roof. Late C20 projecting ground-floor addition.

INTERIOR: not inspected. HISTORY: the former Girls School and the former Grammar School (now the Registrar's Office, qv) form flanking pavilions to the Town Hall (qv). (The Buildings of England: Pevsner N, Harris J, and Antram N: Lincolnshire: London: 1989-: 342; Grimsby - Action for Conservation: Grimsby Borough Planning Department: List of buildings of local architectural or historical interest: Grimsby Borough Council: 1972-: NO.2; Grimsby Planning Department: Central Conservation Area: Grimsby Borough Council: 1990-: NO.2).

Listing NGR: TA2715209296