Carfield Schools And Adjoining Playground Shelter

Carfield Schools and adjoining playground shelter, Argyle Road, Sheffield

This group comprises a nursery, infant and junior school with adjoining playground shelter. The buildings were constructed in 1903 and circa 1913, designed by Joseph Norton for the Norton School Board. They are built in coursed squared stone with ashlar dressings and feature gabled and hipped slate roofs in the Renaissance Revival style.

The north front of the infant school (to the right) rises two storeys across a 12-window range. It displays shouldered coped gables topped with segmental pediments, a coped ridge stack, and a tapered octagonal wooden bell turret crowned with an ogee lead dome and finial. Four shouldered through-eaves dormers with segmental pediments contain glazing bar cross casements, each flanked by single smaller cross casements. Below runs a series of six large segment-headed 3-light windows. To the right is a segment-headed opening with infill panel and double board doors, followed by a half-height segment-headed window. The blank rear wall extends to the playground shelter. The left gable features a projecting square porch, flanked above by a first-floor cross casement, with a segment-headed opening and C20 doorway below. The single-storey rear elevation includes a double gabled wing to the left, embellished with volutes, segmental pediments and pilasters, housing six tall cross casements (the rightmost altered to full height), and a shorter wing to the right with a coped gable stack, square parapet projection, and five wooden casements with transoms.

The infant and junior school building to the left rises three storeys across a 12-window range on a double range plan. Shouldered coped gables with segmental pediments, crests and datestones crown the structure, which carries a large ridge stack with arched opening, a single side wall stack, and a similar bell turret. The north front displays twelve glazing bar cross casements with four through-eaves dormers above, each with similar windows and segmental pediments flanked by smaller cross casements. Below stand four large segment-headed 3-light windows, flanked by two similar openings containing doors with overlights and sidelights, followed by two blocked half-height openings. The left end has a projecting left gable with two doorways and overlights, flanked by a tall cross casement and an external dogleg stair to the lower yard with coped balustrade walls. Above are three tall cross casements. The rear elevation features a projecting double gabled wing at two storeys with six tall cross casements on each floor. A two-storey set-back bay with two windows per floor (upper ones larger) adjoins a three-storey set-back bay with three small windows on each floor. A projecting hipped bay at two storeys contains two windows per floor with the upper ones larger. A hipped link building and toilet block has a blank north wall with external dogleg stair and coped balustrade walls. Late 20th-century single-storey additions are present on the rear elevation.

The buildings retain their original sillbands, string courses, coped gables and parapets throughout, though late 20th-century alterations have been made to some fenestration and doorways.