Ilkeston School

Ilkeston School is a secondary school built between 1910 and 1914 to the designs of George Widdows, who served as architect to Derbyshire's Education Committee from 1904 and as Chief Architect to Derbyshire County Council from 1910 to 1936.

The building is constructed of red brick, mostly cement rendered, with sandstone dressings and concrete. The roofs are of reinforced concrete and felt. The plan is quadrangular, enclosing a detached octagonal hall at its centre. Four covered walkways link the hall to the surrounding quadrangle, continuing as a verandah facing inwards.

The exterior comprises four long single-storey elevations with square corner towers or pavilions that rise slightly above the main roofline. The south and north elevations each have similar towers at their centres, creating thirteen-bay compositions overall. The central bay of the south elevation forms the main entrance and rises to two storeys. It is faced in ashlar with banded rustication and has a concave centre. The doorway features three orders of moulding, and the double doors display geometrical motifs. Five steps lead up to the entrance, flanked by low curved walls terminating in piers topped with tapering wrought iron lamp standards. Above the entrance is a five-light square-section mullioned window. The five bays to either side contain large windows with hopper lights. Each bay is divided by pilasters crowned with decorative rectangles made of alternating strips of red tile and inlaid pebbles. Above each window sits a small raised panel, and below the windows the red brick remains unrendered. A dentil cornice runs beneath the slightly projecting flat roof. The corner towers feature three-light mullioned windows set within recessed panels, flanked by pilaster strips supporting a frieze of geometrical motifs, which are in turn flanked by angle pilaster strips or buttresses. The east, west and north elevations display similar windows and decorative detailing, though the north elevation has doorways flanked by narrow windows occupying the second and third bays from each end. These doorways have raised surrounds in plain cement with a stepped-up central panel containing pebble inlay.

Within the quadrangle, an impressive open colonnade or cloister of red brick fronts the classrooms. The verandahs, positioned below the top panes of the classroom windows, have flat roofs supported on brick piers with rounded corners surmounted by stumpy wooden columns. Four similar covered colonnades link the quadrangle to the central hall, which also has a colonnade around it. The length of the verandahs is accentuated by black and white chequered floor tiles, and paths paved with stone and brick, also in squares, cross the grassed open spaces between the classrooms and hall. The octagonal hall is built of red brick with darker brick quoins. A reinforced concrete dome with eight external ribs rises to a lantern with eight circular windows. Above the ground floor colonnades are seven large Diocletian windows. Two modern wooden structures for storage stand in the north-east and north-west corners of the quadrangle, and one of the walkways connecting the hall and classrooms has been extended slightly. These wooden structures are of no interest.

The hall has a striking interior with eight ribs of the domed roof meeting beneath the central lantern. The space is dramatically lit by the seven Diocletian windows, which contain stained glass designs by Andrew Stoddart of Nottingham. On the side without a window is a stage beneath a tall arch. Below the windows to either side are double doors flanked by octagonal columns and tripartite windows. Opposite the stage is a blind recess flanked by similar doors, and the two remaining sides contain windows only. The windows are hopper opening. The classrooms have wooden panelling, and one fireplace survives complete with its cast iron grate, glazed tile surround, and wooden mantelpiece with dentil decoration. The entrance hall is panelled in dark wood and has a black and white chequered tile floor. Above the entrance is a small room with a window seat to the concave mullioned window. The headteacher's office above the entrance hall is panelled, with a boarded-over fireplace. Its broad window looks out over the dome of the octagonal hall.

George H. Widdows (1871-1946) designed Ilkeston School as one of a large number of new schools built to his designs by Derbyshire County Council in the early 20th century. Derbyshire had experienced the greatest percentage increase in population in the country during the 1890s, particularly due to the growth of coal mining and textile manufacturing communities in the east of the county. Widdows had come to Derbyshire in 1897 as Chief Architectural Assistant to Derby Corporation. Following the 1902 Education Act, responsibility for schools in the county passed to Derbyshire County Council. In 1904 Widdows was appointed architect to the Council's Education Committee, and in 1910 he became Chief Architect to the Council, though schools remained his predominant concern. By his retirement in 1936, he had designed some sixty elementary schools and seventeen secondary schools.

Widdows was at the forefront of the movement to build schools in which high standards of hygiene were as important as educational provision. The first major conference on school hygiene was held in 1904, and in 1907 the Board of Health introduced legislation requiring schools to undergo regular medical inspections. Widdows worked with his Medical Officer, Sidney Barwise, and two deputy architects, C. A. Edeson and T. Walker, to develop innovative designs introducing high levels of natural daylight and effective cross ventilation. His designs, in a neo-vernacular style, were characterised by open verandah-style corridors linking classrooms with generous full-height windows. His distinctive and influential plan forms were based on a linear module that could be arranged in different configurations to suit the size of school required and the shape of the available site.

The advances Widdows made in school planning were recognised by his contemporaries. In an article on provincial school building in 1913, The Builder stated that 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 same article describes Ilkeston School as 'a design of great merit and originality.'

The only additions or alterations are the two modern wooden storage structures in the north-east and north-west corners of the quadrangle, and a slight extension to one of the walkways connecting the hall and classrooms. Other buildings have been added to the school site in the later 20th century, none of which encroach on Widdows' original school.