Small Heath Lower School

Small Heath Lower School

This is a school opened in 1892, designed by Martin and Chamberlain for the Birmingham School Board. An extension was added around 1904 by Buckland and Farmer, with later alterations.

The building is constructed of brick with generous use of terracotta and cut and moulded brick dressings in a great variety of patterns. Unity is achieved through vertical ribbed moulding in the upper parts of the building, above a string-course enriched with chevron moulding used extensively throughout the school's decoration. The roofs are tiled with decorative ridge tiles and finials; brick chimney stacks have their height emphasised by vertical beaded moulding. Most windows have been replaced with timber models following the original patterns, originally featuring moveable hopper panels.

The plan places the hall at the centre of the school on a south-west/north-east alignment. Classrooms open off the hall to the south-east and north-west, with corridors running along the north-east and south-west ends providing access to further rooms. Wings project from each corner; the eastern and southern wings are short, while the northern and western wings are longer. A room in the north corner, thought to have been for domestic science, represents a variation on an otherwise symmetrical plan-form and has a chimney. This room does not appear on preliminary drawings but seems to have been part of the original building. The western and southern wings originally housed the laboratory and workshops; the southern wing was extended in the early 20th century.

The exterior of the original school building is predominantly single-storey, with repeated gables grouped between two-storey blocks marking each corner of the hall range. A tower rises towards the south-west part of the building, with quoin pilasters and central vertical ribbing on the shaft. The upper stage has blind windows with Decorated tracery above; the ornate openwork spire which originally carried the tower to 82 feet has been lost. The school's entrances are in the two-storey blocks, the original girls' entrances to the north-east facing the original boys' entrances to the south. These openings are two-centred arches with hood moulds; the boarded double doors are replacements following the original model, within the original frames and with leaded geometrical fanlights. The two-storey blocks are of two types, each block having the appearance of a small but richly ornamented house. Chimney stacks are corbelled out against the gable ends, and each outer corner has a buttress with a circular shaft of moulded brick rising from a lotus base and with a conical cap. The first-floor windows are round-headed with cinquefoil intrados, and the gable apexes have terracotta decoration.

The low gables follow a number of different patterns; all have two-centred arched windows with terracotta heads and hood-moulds, the arches springing from the chevron-moulded string course, with a chevron moulding following the gable-lines. Between the gables are shallow buttresses with engaged colonettes and off-sets, against which are cast-iron drainpipes with triangular rainwater-heads with chevron decoration. Each classroom gable contains a single large window, above which are ventilation slits with mullions and trefoil heads. The western wings are lit by runs of smaller, paired windows, each pair topped by a gable with terracotta quatrefoil ventilation holes to the apex. The gables to the south-west elevation have encircled quatrefoil above paired windows, with decorative terracotta panels to the apex; the gable to the north-eastern former domestic science room is a reduced version of this design, with smaller windows.

Alterations to the original school building are minor, the most significant being a low addition to the north-eastern wing and a small doorway with a concrete staircase inserted in the north-west wing. The early 20th-century addition to the south-western wing is of two storeys, with a shallow block attached to the north-west side of the existing wing and a deeper block stretching across its south-west end. These gabled blocks have minimal Gothic detailing: the upper windows are pointed, there are tall shallow buttresses, some with gablets, and on the south-east elevation is diaper-patterned brickwork. In the centre of each block is a wooden lantern.

The interior hall is spanned by six cast-iron, round-arched trusses with pierced decoration; the space is lit by the original skylights. The door and window openings, connecting with classrooms and corridors, retain their original doors and fanlights. The wood-block floor remains in place. The school retains a good proportion of its original joinery, with boarded dado panelling to the hall, corridors, and staircases, and many original doors and internal windows. The classrooms also retain dado panelling; false ceilings have been inserted, but timber corbels supporting the roof trusses remain visible. The former lecture hall in the south-west range has been converted for use as a library, with the benches removed and a mezzanine floor inserted. In the corner blocks, each entrance leads to a lobby with glazed panels. The staircases have decorative newel-posts. Some of the first-floor rooms have surviving chimneypieces, and in some the roof structures, with timber and iron trusses, though not decorative, are open. The western wings are both spanned by pierced cast-iron blades, forming pointed arches, and have both been divided internally. The north-west wing has board and glazed timber partitions and contains an original fixed glazed cupboard; there is an adjacent storage room with original shelving. The south-west wing has more permanent divisions, probably installed at the time the adjoining extension was built, creating a corridor and three classrooms, accessed by segmental-arched doorways. The corridor wall cuts through the cast-iron blades; the corridor has a tiled dado, which continues into the newer part of the building. The classrooms in the extension are without historic features.

A range of lean-to structures, including toilets and covered play-sheds, runs along the north perimeter of the site. The boundary of the school, bordering Waverley Road to the north-east and Byron Road to the south-west, is marked by gate piers with complex conical finials of terracotta and by dwarf walls with original cast-iron railings on triangular copings; these also surround the basement area to the north-west of the school.