Bhai Kanhayya House

School built in 1891 by the architects Buckland and Farmer for the Birmingham School Board. The building shows an eclectic design influenced by the Arts and Crafts movement, constructed of red brick with stone dressings and slate roofs. The gable lines are followed by stone coping that curves at the dips between the gables. Some of the timber-framed windows have been replaced.

The plan is broadly rectangular on a north-south axis. A large hall, originally for the junior school, runs along the northern part of the building, and a smaller hall, originally for the infant school, occupies the south end. Classrooms cluster around both halls. Small extensions have been added at the north-west and south-west corners.

The east-facing street frontage is essentially symmetrical, featuring five central gabled bays flanked by cubic entrance blocks, with a further projecting gable and third entrance block towards the south end. On the south side, the east-facing roof slope of the adjoining south-facing classroom contains small dormer windows. This feature originally marked one end of each elevation, though it is now obscured by later additions except at the west end of the north elevation. The gable end of the small hall at the south end of the east elevation is banded with stone and has a curvilinear apex stone containing a foliate cartouche with the carved inscription 'HD 1901'. A tall ventilation shaft rises to the north of this gable. Each gable contains a large parabolic-arched window with stone frame. The entrance blocks have corner piers decorated with stone lozenges; the parapets consist of vertical bricks creating a form of crenellation, with stone coping. Each of the north and south entrance blocks has a pyramidal roof terminating in an elongated finial. The doorways of these two blocks appear to have been altered and are thought originally to have had curvilinear keyed stone arches like those found above doorways elsewhere in the school. Such a doorway is seen in the entrance block at the west end of the south elevation, which breaks a line of four gables, the easternmost of which may formerly have held an arched window. The west elevation has a line of four gables to the north, with projecting gables to the south. Entrance blocks on the west correspond to those on the east front. At the north corner, a large early 20th-century classroom, probably dating from 1908, replicates the details of the original building. The north elevation contains two large gables with arched windows, separated by a smaller gable with coupled rectangular windows. Shield-shaped rain-water heads carry the letters 'BSB' (Birmingham School Board). A cupola that once rose from the roof, described in 1968 as 'a pagoda roof supported on cast iron brackets', is now missing.

Internally, the building has been much altered. Each classroom has been divided horizontally to provide two flats, with a ceiling inserted that intersects each arched window. The upper flats are accessed from inside the building by metal stairs constructed in the halls. The large hall is spanned by timber arches with steel ties, resting on corbels at two alternating heights; the ceiling and arches have been partially obscured by the insertion of a false ceiling. The small hall is similar but the arches all descend to the same height.

The east elevation of the school is separated from the road by decorative panels of railings with a fleur-de-lys pattern, on curved copings. The low brick walls with dividing piers may have been rebuilt.