Former Home for Penitent Females with Boundary Walls

Former Home for Penitent Females with Boundary Walls

This building, constructed around 1881 to the design of William Beaumont Smith, was originally built as a home for fallen women with an attached laundry. It has since been converted to use as a school.

The building is constructed of red brick laid in English bond with Ancaster stone dressings and a slate roof. It occupies a corner plot at the junction of Stoneygate Road and Aber Road, with a U-shaped plan enclosed by an ancillary range along the eastern edge of the rear courtyard.

The primary elevation faces Stoneygate Road and is three storeys in height. The central section containing the main entrance is slightly recessed behind flanking gabled bays with decorative stone kneelers at each end. The main entrance is housed in a projecting and deeply moulded surround with a panelled door set in a pointed arch with flanking buttresses and stone detailing to the coped gable above. To the right of the entrance door are tall windows lighting the interior stair, the lower of which is set beneath a brick relieving arch with herringbone detail. Circular windows with tracery detail are set within the gable apexes.

Windows are generally two or three light sashes arranged in groups of two or three, with stone lintels and sills. String courses at first and second floor level feature brick dentils and scalloped terracotta detailing. A brick and stone architrave with stone corbels runs beneath the eaves. These features continue along the perpendicular range facing Aber Road. The stone detailing to the front elevations is predominantly replicated in brick to the rear elevations, which feature a single storey bay window and metal fire escapes. Ridge stacks and gable end stacks with oversailing brick courses are present on both ranges. Adjoining the south-east end of the main elevation is a single-storey flat-roofed extension with paired sash windows.

The single-storey L-shaped former laundry range to the north-east features windows with glazing bars beneath arched brick lintels and a dentil eaves course. Its road-facing gable end has a circular niche beneath its apex. The south-east projection of this range features paired windows set within stone surrounds, covered with diamond-patterned grates to the courtyard elevation, with a cluster of small outbuildings adjoining to the north. The roof has louvered ridge vents capped with pyramidal roofs.

The original 1880 floor plans indicate that the ground floor rooms included a chapel, work room, kitchen and dining hall. Partitions appear to have been inserted into some of the ground floor rooms. Moulded cornices, architraves, and panelling around the windows survive in some rooms, and a segmental arched niche to what appears to have been the fireplace to the dining hall is present. The single storey wing to the rear contained the former laundry, with no surviving features of this use remaining. Modern fire doors are present throughout.

The main staircase appears to be in its original position, giving access to the first and second floors, though it is unclear whether the original staircase survives. The 1880 plans show that the upper floors had a cellular plan with multiple dormitories accessed from perpendicular corridors. The corridor plan appears to largely survive. Some of the former dormitory partitions appear to have been removed to create larger rooms, and some rooms retain decorative ventilation grilles.

An adjoining red brick boundary wall laid in English bond with pier buttresses and blue angled coping stones encircles the yard to the north of the building.