Springfield Junior And Infant Schools

Springfield Junior and Infant Schools

A board school, now junior and infant schools, located on Cavendish Street in Sheffield. Built in 1875 with additions made in 1892 and 1897, it was designed by the architects Innocent & Brown for the Sheffield School Board. The building is constructed of coursed squared stone with ashlar dressings, and features gabled and hipped slate roofs with single side wall and single gable stacks. It is designed in the Gothic Revival style.

The main exterior comprises a three-storey structure with a nine-window range. The principal block has a recessed centre flanked by single gabled wings. The first floor displays six round-arched single light windows, above which sit two small single light windows flanked by large through-eaves dormers with transomed double lancets and quatrefoil lights above. The ground floor contains five round-arched single light windows. A plinth, sill and lintel bands, and coped gables are prominent features throughout.

The left wing has three round-arched single light windows with a stepped triple lancet above it featuring transoms and hoodmould, and below these are two shouldered single light windows. To the left of the gable stands an angle buttress topped with an arched bell turret with four arched openings and a spire with weather vane. Adjacent to this is a canted stair tower, three storeys plus attic, with a hipped roof. The stair tower has a single small window on each floor and seven quatrefoil lights to the attic. The left return features staggered windows on the lower floors. At the canted corner is a blocked window, above which sits a gabled niche containing an inscribed datestone.

The right wing has on the first floor two paired shouldered windows with linked hoodmoulds, and above them a central transomed double lancet with wheel window above, flanked by single transomed lancets, all with linked hoodmoulds. The ground floor contains a central gabled buttress and to the left, a pointed relieving arch with inner moulded segmental arch containing a small window. To the left is an angle buttress, and to the right is a small paired window. The right return has a shouldered window on the upper floors and below, a flat-headed door with cusped headed surround under a segmental relieving arch. To the right stands a two-storey linking wing with three windows on each floor, the upper ones larger and featuring cusped lintels.

The rear elevation is dominated by a central projecting double gable with a short central buttress. The ground and first floors have two large round-headed glazing bar windows flanked by smaller transomed round-arched windows. Above, each gable has a four-light shouldered transomed window. A set-back gable to the right has three round-arched windows and above them a stepped triple lancet. Below this is a single large round-arched window. The right return has three windows on the upper floors, the second floor ones round-headed, and on the ground floor a large round-arched window.

A single-storey addition facing Bolton Street features a single gable and single ridge stacks with lozenge-shaped flues. It is decorated with two large gabled through-eaves dormers, each with a transomed double lancet and quatrefoil above, alternating with six shouldered single light windows. Above these are three gabled ventilators. The left gable contains a stepped triple lancet with hoodmould, flanked by single shouldered windows.

To the rear is an adjoining two-storey play deck of L-plan. The railed deck is carried on cast-iron columns, with a coped stone end wall. On the deck sits a single-storey square building with a pyramidal roof and single window. To the right is the 1897 addition, with a single-storey block to the left featuring a stepped coped parapet. This block has a round-arched doorway with cusped head flanked by two small single lancets, with single shouldered windows above them. To the right are three tall segment-headed transomed windows. Further right is a coped gable with square chimney stacks forming angle pilasters, with square caps with side openings. A low unglazed stepped triple lancet sits in a moulded pointed recess, with below it a transomed shouldered triple window with shafts. The right return is rendered.

The interior has not been inspected for this listing.

This school is one of a number designed by Innocent & Brown for the Sheffield School Board and is amongst the earliest in England to be built after the 1870 Education Act.