Hazel Primary School And Community Centre

Hazel Primary School and Community Centre, Leicester

A school and community centre on Hazel Street (south side), comprising two formerly separate buildings: a junior school dating from 1882 and an infant school from 1902, with late 20th-century alterations. Both buildings are constructed in red brick with brick dressings and plain tile roofs with raised and coped gables.

The former junior school to the west is a two-storey building. Its west street front features ten glazing bar windows to the ground floor, all with segmental heads. The central section of the upper floor contains three sets of triple windows, each topped with a gable housing a circular window. To either side are four small sash windows with flat heads. The north front displays a pair of gables with a projecting porch between them, featuring a round arched doorway. Above rises an octagonal ventilation tower with single narrow windows to the upper floors alternating with buttresses, topped by a wooden octagonal spire with open arcade and weather vane. The gable to the right has a slightly projecting centre with two ground floor windows and three windows above. The similar gable to the left contains a round-headed doorway and two small windows, with three windows above. The east front has a projecting wing to the left with two tall narrow windows and three narrow windows above. To the right are eight windows with buttresses between, followed by a single tall stair window and an external stack. The south front features a projecting central porch with a round-headed side entrance and two windows with segmental heads, with five small windows above topped by a tall pyramidal roof. The left gable has two windows below and three above; the right gable has three windows below and three above.

The interior contains an assembly hall on the upper floor with an ornate coved plaster ceiling and a six-arched ashlar arcade with octagonal columns and moulded arches. Walls link to a former covered playground and workshop to the east, featuring two segmental arches (now blocked), three tall windows above, and a circular window in the gable. The west front has an open ground floor with external steps to an upper door and three sashes to the right, the further two being double. A single-storey toilet block with a raised central ridge ventilator is attached to the right.

The former infant school to the east, entered from Sawday Street, features a south-west corner tower with octagonal finials and a single round arch to each face, topped with a small octagonal dome. The south front has a recessed centre with cross wings to either side. Both cross wings have slightly projecting triple window panels topped with central segmental pediments over paired central windows, with three small glazing bar windows to the left. The west front contains two gables: the right gable has irregular fenestration and two doorways, while the left gable has octagonal corner finials and four windows with alternating glazed doors. The east front has a small gable to the left with a large round-headed window flanked by small windows and a round-headed doorway to the right. Beyond this is a gabled wing with two windows, then a large gable with octagonal corner finials and five windows, the central pair topped by a steep pediment and a circular window in the gable above.