The Institute

The Institute is an educational building dating back to 1878, designed by C Isaac Newey, with a 20th-century addition and later alterations. The front range is constructed of red brick with ashlar and moulded brick detailing, and has plain tile roofs. It is built in a Gothic Revival style, featuring a plinth, moulded string courses and eaves detail. The front has two storeys and a three-window range.

A recessed central porch, also two storeys high, has a moulded pointed arched doorway with original panelled double doors and a leaded glazed fanlight, all under a coped gable. To the left of the porch is a pointed arched recess with a hood mould, containing a datestone. Above this is an arched opening with a hood mould containing a plain sash window. The left return features similar sash windows on each floor. A projecting bay on the left has a canted bay window under a slate roof, with original plain sashes in shouldered openings. Above this is a through-eaves dormer with a traceried bargeboard, containing two plain sashes in a segment arched opening with a hood mould. A later 20th-century gable replaced the original pyramidal roof. To the right is a recessed bay window, two storeys high, with a gable and traceried bargeboard. It features two plain sashes with shouldered heads set in a segment arched opening with a hood mould. Each return of this bay has a similar single window. Above, a triple lancet opening with linked hood moulds and plain sashes is set, along with similar single sashes on each return.

To the right of the main range is an early 20th-century addition of red brick, single storey, with a coped gable and a segment arched carriage opening with double doors. It has a felted roof and a plain, rendered right return. This addition obscures seven original openings, four of which are now blocked.

Service rooms, a meeting room, and a lecture hall are situated at the rear, also of red brick with slate roofs, and largely concealed by the early 20th-century addition. A large gabled block houses the meeting room and lecture hall; it features rooflights and ventilators, and a central double door entrance. A gabled projection with a smaller lean-to addition is also present at the rear.

Inside the front range, the hallway has pointed arches, cornices and Gothic doorcases, leading to a dogleg principal staircase with turned balusters, square newels and a moulded handrail. Principal rooms have cornices and renewed fireplaces; a segment arched kitchen fireplace may be original. First-floor rooms also have cornices, and one has an exposed roof truss on corbels. The meeting room has matchboard dado, pointed arched blind arcading with an impost band, and exposed roof trusses on corbels, linked by tie rods. A blocked pointed arched opening with sliding doors leads to the lecture hall, with altered double doors into the service range. The lecture hall features similar blind arcading with enriched tympana and friezes of cherubs, along with a comparable roof structure with wall shafts to corbels. A doorway with a Gothic surround leads to a side passage. A segmental pointed proscenium arch is visible on the stage, which has panelled fronts and an inserted panelled enclosure to the steps leading into the space beneath. A cellar, with segment arched brick arcades, lies under the stage.