Oakbrook Notre Dame Roman Catholic School Sixth Form Block

This is a house, later adapted as a sixth form block for Oakbrook, Notre Dame Roman Catholic School, built around 1855 for Mark Firth. It is constructed of ashlar with hipped slate roofs and features four coped stone ridge stacks. The building is designed in an Italianate style.

The exterior features a rusticated plinth, quoins, a first-floor band, sill and eaves bands, an eaves cornice, and a balustrade topped with urns. The main facade is two storeys high plus attics and has a five-window range. The windows are plain sashes with moulded surrounds; those on the ground floor have small cornices. The central entrance has a balustraded carriage porch with paired, heavily rusticated Ionic columns. A 20th-century double door and overlight form the entrance. To the right is a single sash window, and to the left a triple sash. A two-storey service wing, set back, is visible to the right, with a hipped roof and a large ridge stack. The projecting return of the garden front features sashes on each floor. The asymmetrical garden front includes a recessed centre with two single sashes, and above the door a double sash with cornice and a pseudo-balcony. A round-headed doorcase with panelled pilasters, a glazed two-leaf door with fanlight and sidelights, and a projecting two-storey canted bay window with three sashes on each floor are also present. A square belvedere tower, three stages high, with a modillion eaves cornice, a balustrade with urns, and double round-headed openings with single shafts and keystones is situated to the left. A round-headed niche with a figure is located on the tower’s left return. The plainer left return has a canted bay window with three sashes on each floor, flanked by a single sash to the right and three sashes to the left. A full-width lean-to conservatory adjoins the set-back service wing to the left.

The interior includes a cantilevered stone open-well staircase with cast-iron balusters and a ramped scrolled handrail. The main rooms are characterised by enriched cornices. One garden front room has plaster wall panels and a painted ceiling. Mark Firth, for whom the house was built, was a significant steel manufacturer and philanthropist in Sheffield during the 19th century.