Anderton Park School, Caretaker'S House And Victorian Railings

This school was built in 1896 by the architectural practice Martin and Chamberlain for the Birmingham School Board. Originally known as Dennis Road School, it was designed to accommodate 1,020 pupils, divided between junior and infant sections.

The building is constructed of red brick with steeply pitched red tiled roofs and brick and terracotta decoration. Four brick chimney stacks rise from the building, three of which have a zig-zag outline. The majority of the wooden windows in the older parts of the building are original, though some have been modified.

Plan and Layout

The school occupies a rectangular footprint on a north-south axis, with projecting entrances. The building originally housed the junior school to the north and the infants' school to the south, with classrooms arranged around a hall in each section. One range to the south is of two storeys; the rest of the building is single-storey. A tall ventilation tower, designed to serve the 'plenum' system of forced air circulation, stands towards the south of the building.

Extensions were added to the north-west and south-west corners between 1904 and 1916. On the west front, two classrooms destroyed by bombing in 1940 have been replaced by later 20th-century single-storey flat-roofed additions, and there is another small addition to the south-east; these later additions are not of special interest. A caretaker's house, contemporary with the school, stands to the north-west.

Exterior

All four elevations are asymmetrical, with repeated gables of varying heights and planes. The arrangement and decoration of the gable ends is fairly consistent throughout the building. In the original single-storey classrooms, paired three-centred windows with moulded brick surrounds are connected by stopped terracotta hood moulds, each window having a sloping apron of stepped terracotta with volutes to either end. Above the windows are three roundels of gauged red brick with latticed centres providing ventilation, set between bands of dog-tooth and dentilated brickwork; a dentil band follows the eaves.

These features show some variation. The gables of extensions added in the early 20th century replace the roundels with decorative brickwork and ventilation slits, and there are recessed half-timbered gables.

The ventilation tower takes the form of a belfry in the Queen Anne Revival style and rises at the northern edge of the southern, two-storey range, visible from all sides. Supported internally on cast iron columns, the base of the tower is of brick, with angle buttresses terminating in engaged onion finials. The next stage is an octagonal louvred shaft, the angles marked by consoles and colonettes and surmounted by curving wrought iron openwork panels. The tiled roof then narrows to a lantern with a lead cupola of elongated onion shape with a zig-zag decoration.

The entrance is in the two-storey range on the east front. This five-bay range contains three gable ends, with the arched doorway placed off centre. The right-hand gable is set back, and here the openings of the upper windows extend downwards, creating recesses within which the lower windows are contained. To the left of this range, a single-storey flanking wall has been pierced by a 20th-century tripartite window. The right-hand part of this frontage and the north, west and south frontages consist of the original single-storey gabled classrooms, the scheme occasionally interrupted by the 20th-century interventions.

Interior

Internally, the main hall runs north-south along the centre of the northern part of the building, with the small, or infants', hall running west-east across the southern part of the building. Both halls are spanned by cast-iron rounded arches with pierced decoration—the large hall having five and the small hall having two. The halls are accessed through symmetrically placed double doors, giving access to classrooms and corridors.

The school retains much original joinery throughout the ground floor. Corridors and classrooms have boarded dado panelling with moulded rails, and doors are largely original, with chamfered rails and muntins, most being glazed and surmounted by fanlights. A number of the classrooms have original fixed tall cupboards with sloping tops, some tambour-fronted, others glazed.

The two classrooms of the north-west early 20th-century extension are accessed by a passage created by a glazed screen. In these rooms the dado is lined with brown glazed tiles with a decorative rail, and in one room the mounting dado line suggests the former presence of banked seating. The majority of the rooms retain their original wooden flooring. False ceilings have been inserted in all the classrooms.

The upper storey to the south is accessed by a staircase with a moulded starting-newel and chamfered balusters. This floor, which formerly provided facilities for home economics—the cast iron range has been removed—has been largely subdivided. The remaining large room contains a wooden chimneypiece.

Caretaker's House and Railings

The asymmetrically gabled caretaker's house is also of red brick, with replacement windows and a door sheltered by a tiled canopy. The decorative treatment is a reduced version of that applied to the school: the windows are single rather than paired and (with one exception) lack the volutes to their aprons; there is a single brick roundel in the principal gable. Internally, the house retains its staircase and panelled doors, as found in the school.

Cast iron railings set in triangular copings run along the east and north sides of the building, marking the original boundary of the school grounds. An original gate is incorporated on the east front, marking the separation between the northern and southern sections of the building, and at the north-east corner of the site is a pair of red brick gate piers.

Historical Context

The Birmingham School Board was brought into being by the Elementary Education Act of 1870. The Act, which empowered school boards to create new schools and pay the fees of the poorest children, was largely the result of campaigning by the Birmingham-centred National Education League. By 1902, when the Education Act abolished school boards and passed responsibility for education to local authorities, the Birmingham School Board had built fifty-one new schools, all but four of which were designed by Martin and Chamberlain—from 1900 Martin and Martin—appointed Architect to the Board in 1870.

Martin and Chamberlain was formed by John Henry Chamberlain (1831-1883) and William Martin (1828-1900) in 1864. Following Chamberlain's death, Martin was joined by his son, Frederick William Martin (1859-1917), who took over much of the design work. The board schools operated as focal points within each district, serving as symbols of municipal pride and civic achievement. Martin and Chamberlain created a house style for these buildings, characterised by red-brick construction, tall ventilation towers, proliferation of gables, and decorative use of tiles and terracotta, sometimes displaying naturalistic forms. Chamberlain, the leading creative force within the practice until his death, believed that beautiful and well-planned school architecture might offer children some compensation for drab, cramped homes. In 1894 the Pall Mall Gazette commented that, 'In Birmingham you may generally recognise a Board School by its being the best building in the neighbourhood'.

The school was successful from the first. The Inspector's report of 1897 commended progress, noting that 'For beauty of design and convenience of working the school is worthy of the highest admiration'. In 1939 the school became a senior boys' school, with attached junior and infants' school. Bombing in 1940 destroyed two classrooms, which have since been replaced—small additions had already been made to the school early in the century. The school became Anderton Park Junior and Infant School in 1963. In 1985 part of Dennis Road, running to the east of the school, was incorporated into the school grounds.