The Former Garrison Lane Junior And Infant Schools

The Former Garrison Lane Junior and Infant Schools

A school built in 1873 by the architects Martin and Chamberlain for the Birmingham School Board. The former Garrison Lane School comprises two connected buildings: the junior school to the east and the infant school to the west. A detached master's or caretaker's house stands at a short distance to the east of the junior school. Both main buildings are constructed of red brick with cut brick and ashlar dressings, with tiled roofs. A ventilation tower rises from the north end of the western building, topped with a pyramidal slated spire featuring metal detailing including louvres, lucarnes and decorative banding with rosettes, surmounted by a delicate finial.

The Junior School

The junior school is a two-storey building with a roughly rectangular plan and a projecting apsidal range to the east of the south elevation. The south-facing street elevation contains an inserted or altered entrance to the west, coupled lancet windows to the ground floor, segmental-arched windows to the first floor, and two gabled dormers with pointed lights. The apsidal western wing has a pointed-arched entrance with 'Boys School' carved in a sexfoil within the gable above.

The east elevation faces the yard between the junior school and caretaker's house. Four bays separated by brick buttresses contain, on the ground floor, four pairs of windows with shouldered-arched openings within pointed ashlar arches framed by gauged brick; above are lancets in triplets. Some ground-floor openings have been lowered to create doorways. To the north end, a projecting four-bay gable has upper windows with trefoil heads; the attic contains a large pointed light.

The west elevation contains four varied gables. The two central gables, separated by a buttress with stone gablet, each contain four tall windows with pointed ashlar tympana linked by a hood mould, and above, four lancets whose heads are linked by a stone band, surmounted by a foiled rose window in a pointed frame. The southern and northern gabled sections are balanced, each having five linked lancet windows with brick arches and hood moulds, though both have received alteration to the ground floor: the southern gable has a round window, and the northern gable has paired lancets. The north elevation has been altered to create a large flat-headed entrance.

The Infant School

The former infant school is connected to the junior school by iron gates with opposing early 20th-century open lean-to roof structures. The building is single-storey with an attic, and its external decorative treatment is plainer than that of the junior school. The south-facing street elevation has a dormer to the west with two lancet windows with linking hood mould, and a tall stack rising to the east of the dormer. To the east are three pairs of segmental-arched windows separated by buttresses; the westerly pair has been blocked. Further east, an early 20th-century extension provides a second dormer and stack, and an east-facing gable with a large window in a round-headed recess.

The east elevation, facing the junior school, has a tall gable with lancet windows surmounted by round lights and a round ventilation opening, with a lower gable to the north containing three lancets with hood moulds. The north elevation has a single gable to the west, also with three lancets; in the eastern section are paired segmental-arched windows separated by buttresses.

Interior

Both buildings retain historic features but have undergone considerable alteration, with some spaces opened up and others partitioned; false ceilings have also been inserted. The junior school has staircases at both the north and south ends; some internal joinery remains, including doors and glazed screens connecting the classrooms with the corridor, and dado panelling is retained to the staircases and hallway.

Within the infant school, false ceilings conceal the timber roof trusses, though the corbels supporting them remain visible. The building retains some glazed screens to the classrooms, with trefoil or shouldered lights above the doorways.

Subsidiary Features

The eastern section of the school has a brick screen wall with decorative iron coping. To the west are brick gate piers with stone caps, framing the former boys' entrance; to the east, gates link the school with the associated house.