The Broadway Comprehensive School

The Broadway Comprehensive School is a large, richly detailed Board School built in the late 19th century. Constructed primarily of buff terracotta with red brick, it exhibits an English Baroque theme blended with Art Nouveau decorative elements, departing from the typical Birmingham Arts and Crafts style.

The main block, containing the central hall, has five bays and is built on a tall basement, flanked by entrances for Girls and Boys, which bridge the area. Behind the main block are two-storey and basement wings, complemented by three-storey octagonal towers. The hall block is topped with a steeply pitched slate roof featuring small, mannered Baroque oeil de boeuf dormers. A giant Roman Doric order, entirely of terracotta, articulates the hall elevation, featuring engaged columns in antis and a projecting, double-columned centrepiece topped with a segmental pediment. Blocking is visible on the lower parts of the column shafts. An ornate terracotta eaves cornice is present, with a plain terracotta attic behind the pediment, crowned by an octagonal, columned cupola. Rusticated terracotta extends down into the basement. Tall windows occupy almost the full width of the spaces between the columns, featuring thin terracotta architraves, friezes, moulded cornices and small round vents. The centre of the elevation contains a larger, archivolt arched window.

Two Art Nouveau-inspired entrance arches partially encroach on the hall’s front elevation. These arches feature entasised corner turrets that blend into gables over deep, voussoired archways. Their surrounds merge into parapets spanning the area and flanking the steps. Drip moulds flow from "Rococo" cartouches on the turrets, each vested by three naturalistically modelled children’s heads in high relief. The drip moulds rise to delicate female head keystones, the hair flowing out to form cartouches and crests.

The recessed wings are built of red brick with terracotta banding. The three-storey octagonal turrets have elaborate terracotta dressings to the top stage, including Art Nouveau consoles at the angles below the eaves of shallow lead dormers, which are crowned by bellcots. The plain brick side elevations, also with terracotta banding, have large Diocletian windows below approximately central gables. The basement level on the west side has a side entrance with a heavy terracotta arched cornice hood containing an egg-shaped light above remarkable shallow relief modelling of a semi-circular archway with a head keystone, all merging into free-flowing cartouches. The rear elevation is primarily brick with terracotta dressings and is distinguished by a series of gables, echoing the Diocletian windows from the sides. A small but distinctive detail is the presence of Art Nouveau terracotta brick vents pierced by ovoid "bone" framed apertures. The school is situated across the tangent between two streets, highlighting the tension of the composition.