Annexe To Priory Street Sports And Community Centre And Attached Railings

The building is an annexe to the Priory Street Sports and Community Centre, originally built in 1905 as an extension to the Priory Street Wesleyan School. It was designed by T Monkman and Sons and has undergone minor alterations in the late 20th century. It is constructed primarily of pink-grey mottled brick in an English garden-wall bond, with banding and dressings of orange-red brick. The roof is slate-covered, featuring gabled louvres and projecting boarded eaves which return to form the bases of the gable end bargeboards. Brick cornice stacks are banded with contrasting brick. Attached cast-iron railings and a gate bound the playground on the north-west, south-west, and south-east sides.

The playground front features two storeys and 11 unequal bays. The ground floor has dwarf pilaster buttresses separating the left-end bays, while the end bay has been altered to create an entrance with 20th-century glazed doors. Most of the other ground-floor bays contain tall windows. A small sash window is located in the centre bay alongside an extruded stack. The first floor has 9 windows, with 6 shorter windows interspersed with 3 taller windows. These taller windows are positioned above aprons of contrasting brick which break the roofline as flat half-dormers. The windows have small-pane glazing, painted stone sills, and flat arches constructed with gauged brick. The south-east front has gabled wings of two storeys with attics, which project between single-storey end blocks, these being linked by a single-storey centre block; the fenestration is irregular. The entrances in the wings retain their original half-glazed and panelled double doors beneath lintels, with the left entrance inscribed 'GIRLS' and the right one 'BOYS.' They are sheltered by moulded hoods. The attic windows are lunettes with six-pane centre lights, stone sills and keyed semicircular arches of gauged brick. The Priory Street front has three ground-floor windows, with the centre one altered to 20th-century glazed doors beneath flat arches of gauged brick; a stepped keyblock is present above the centre window. A band of diapered brick is positioned above the ground floor. The attic features a cross-glazed oculus within a keyed surround of gauged brick. The interior of the building was not inspected.

The subsidiary railings to the north-west are situated on a low brick wall extending from a terminal pier with a square section, ashlar necking, moulded cornice and flat cap. To the south-west and south-east, railings and a footgate are set upon a chamfered stone plinth between square-section piers which stand on high plinths, each with moulded cornices and cross-pedimented caps. The turned railings and standards are topped with tall arrowhead tips, while the gateposts have ball finials.