The Listed Building (formerly Floodgate School), Digbeth Campus, South Birmingham College

EXTERIOR: the south side has four large bays to the left, each of which is crowned by a gable. At ground floor level the walling is flush, but at first floor level there are projecting pilaster buttresses which have richly-moulded, terracotta gablets to their tops. They are set at either side of the windows, which are each divided by two mullions. Windows at ground and first floor levels have segmental heads, while those to the second floor have arched heads, extending into the gables, with terracotta decoration to the eaves. At right of this, and slightly recessed, is a bay with a doorway to the bottom and a series of small windows including two lancets to the top, which indicate a staircase inside the building. The east face has a similar large bay to those seen on the south front at right. To left of this are four-storeys of staircase windows. To the ridge behind is a square, wooden turret with pyramidal roof and weather vane. The north front has blank walling to the left, with six-bays to the right of this which correspond to the hall inside the building. These have windows with cambered heads to the ground floor and taller windows above with one, prominent, transom and arched heads. Between these bays are wide buttresses with fluting to their corners and offsets. These terminate in gabled tops with open terracotta tracery and there is further terracotta ornament, including bosses, blind arcading to the top of the wall and an elaborate eaves cornice.

The east, or Milk Street front, which was the original entrance front and is now connected to the early-C21 college addition, has blank walling, save for clusters of four recessed lancets at first and second-floor levels, which light a staircase. At ground floor level is a single-storey, canted porch with a flat roof, which has an elaborate gabled porch to its right flank.

Above, and visible from all sides, is the ventilation tower which has a square lower body and an elaborate top stage, with bowed sides, polygonal turrets to the corners, and an arcaded parapet and cast-iron cresting to the top.

INTERIOR: the entrance from Milk Street gives onto a corridor with fire-proof vaulting that leads to a hall with an open-well staircase. This leads to the assembly hall at first floor level which has hammer beam roof trusses, supported on painted stone corbels. The south flank wall has a balcony landing supported on deep, cast-iron brackets, with panel tracery and pendant bosses. Doors throughout the building are largely to the original pattern, with glazing to the upper panels. Classrooms have vertical plank panelling below the dado, as do the passages and hall.