Netherthorpe Junior School And Adjoining Caretakers House And Walls

Netherthorpe Junior School and adjoining caretaker's house and walls, Sheffield

This board school, now a junior school, was built in 1873 with additions in 1884. The adjoining caretaker's house dates from 1878. The buildings were designed by the architects Innocent and Brown for the Sheffield School Board. This school is the earliest to survive of those designed by Innocent and Brown for the Sheffield School Board and is amongst the first to be built in England after the 1870 Education Act, making it of particular historical interest.

The school is constructed in coursed squared stone with ashlar dressings. The roof is hipped and gabled with slate, coated with grey composition. Three paired stone ridge stacks with louvred ventilators sit between them. The design follows the Gothic Revival style with a T-plan layout.

The exterior has a plinth, sillbands, and coped gables. The building is 2 storeys and 2 storeys plus attics, arranged in a 12 window range. The symmetrical front features a slightly projecting central gable with angle buttresses. Two large transomed 3-light pointed arch windows with plate tracery and hoodmoulds occupy the main level, with a single lancet bell opening in the gable above, accompanied by a coat of arms, flanked by thinner single lancet bell openings. Below these are 2 round-headed transomed 3-light windows. On either side, wings contain 2 flat-headed mullioned windows on the upper storey and 2 round-headed transomed 3-light windows below. Beyond these are single bow fronted stair turrets with 3 cusped-headed single lancets. Between floors on the stair turrets is a single trefoil-headed lancet; on the ground floor of the right turret only is a trefoil-headed lancet with hoodmould. In the return angles is a single similar window. Single entrance bays beyond contain 2-light mullioned windows, with a pair of double doors and a large cusped-headed overlight below.

Projecting end gables feature large transomed 3-light pointed arch windows with cusped heads, and below these are 2 round-headed 3-light windows with wooden cross mullions. The hipped rear wing has 6 paired first-floor windows set on a sillband. The double hipped rear elevation features a similar central window with below it a pair of transomed windows flanked by similar single windows, all segment-headed.

The adjoining caretaker's house has gabled and hipped slate roofs with coped gables and a large rear gable stack. It is 2 storeys plus garrets with a 2 window range. On the front elevation facing Dover Street, the right side has a single window and the left a smaller window with an incised lintel, both on a sillband. Above is a larger single window serving the garret. Below on the right is a similar window, flanked to the left by a door with an overlight. The right return has a single ground floor window. All windows have late 20th-century glazing. Several caretakers' houses of this design were added to board schools in 1877–78.

The subsidiary features include an adjoining stone boundary wall with triangular stone coping and attached outbuildings enclosing the school site. The Netherthorpe Street front has a spiked wrought-iron railing with stone plinth and chamfered coping, and 2 pairs of wrought-iron gates. The Dover Street range includes a short length off-centre with a gateway serving the caretaker's house. To the right is a rounded corner with an attached hipped single-storey outbuilding. To the left is a similar hipped outbuilding followed by another rounded corner.