Brockley Primary School (South Block)

Brockley Primary School (South Block), an infants school formerly an elementary school, was completed in 1927 and designed by George Widdows, architect to Derbyshire's Education Committee from 1904 and Chief Architect to Derbyshire County Council from 1910 to 1936. The school is constructed of red brick with Welsh slate and plain tile roof coverings.

The building follows a U-shaped open quadrangular plan, with a tall central hall and storied entrance bays forming the site frontage, and rear parallel classroom wings enclosing a courtyard playground area.

The front western elevation features a tall central four-bay hall beneath a hipped mansard roof, with four full-height windows in UPVC eight-pane frames. Flanking the hall are storied entrance and administration areas, each with a full-height canted bay window to the front and three flat-roofed dormer windows on the outer slope of their mansard roofs. Doors are recessed within flat-roofed single-storey offshuts to the side of the storied bays. Behind the frontage range are two classroom wings on either side of the courtyard playground. These are single-storied with mansard roofs, each featuring continuous high-level north-light windows forming one roof slope and plain tiling on the other. The classrooms are set within open verandah corridors extending on both sides of the wings. The roof slopes extend down to corridor wall plates carried on wooden arcade posts with miniature curved braces at their heads. These posts stand on low padstones and are linked by plain low-level wooden balustrading. A verandah corridor attached to the rear wall of the hall connects the inner corridors of the two classroom wings.

The street frontage is enclosed by nail-headed railing set on low brick plinth walls with terminal and intermediate square-sectioned brick piers with moulded flat caps, extending the full length of the school frontage and flanking each entrance.

The interior of the hall features panelling to the lower walls and a stage with proscenium arch at the north end, flanked by giant pilasters. At the south end, a doorway to staff and administration rooms is similarly flanked by pilasters. The shallow-arched ceiling is divided into bays by ribs extending to wall piers with plain capitals. Each of the two classroom wings contains four classrooms of identical form. Each classroom has eight-panel part-glazed partition walls with hopper vents, pairs of panels or doors recessed within substantial frames, and fitted storage cupboards with drawers below.

George Widdows (1871–1946) was at the forefront of the movement to build schools emphasising high standards of hygiene alongside educational provision. Following the 1902 Education Act, responsibility for schools passed to Derbyshire County Council. Widdows developed a series of innovative designs working with Medical Officer Sidney Barwise and deputy architects C. A. Edeson and T. Walker, introducing high levels of natural daylight and effective cross ventilation. His distinctive plan forms, often in neo-vernacular style, were characterised by open verandah-style corridors linking classrooms with generous full-height windows, based on a linear module that could be arranged in different configurations. By his retirement in 1936, he had designed approximately sixty elementary and seventeen secondary schools. In 1913, The Builder stated his work "constitutes a revolution in the planning and arrangement of school buildings... a real advance which places English school architecture without a rival in any European country or the United States."

The school retains original elements including unenclosed verandah corridors, classroom partitions, roof north-light glazing, window and door joinery, and arcade elements. Minor recent alterations and additions have not significantly affected the building's architectural interest.