Whitehall Schools

School Building, 1899

Whitehall Schools was designed by the local architectural practice F.E.F. Bailey and McConnal and opened in 1899 as a Board School for Whitehall, Walsall. The building was constructed following a competition organised in 1897, which the practice won. It was built to accommodate 1,070 children across two departments: a mixed section for 390 boys and 330 girls, and a separate infants section for 350 children. The mixed section, described here, was built first and initially housed all three functions with 310 boys, 250 girls and 205 infants sharing the space before the infants section was constructed to the rear of the site a few years later in a less architecturally ambitious style. The building was fitted with gas lighting and cost approximately £8,500. The opening ceremony was recorded in The Walsall Observer, where the Clerk to the School Board noted this was the eleventh school block funded by the board and, as the best and most expensive, merited a formal opening.

The building is constructed of red English-bond brick with terracotta dressings and a plain tile roof, parts of which have been replaced. It is single-storey with a longitudinal corridor plan and classrooms arranged to either side.

The principal west-facing façade to West Bromwich Road is long and near-symmetrical, featuring a central projecting bay with a gable flanked by polygonal panelled buttresses at its outer corners. Above is a shaped gable with an oval panel at its apex displaying the bear with ragged staff of Staffordshire and the date 1899. Below is an inscription reading "WALSALL / SCHOOL BOARD" above a multi-paned central window with slender lateral lights. Either side of this central feature extend the classroom ranges beneath a deep roof. Paired arched windows project into gablets flanked by shallow buttresses with projecting voussoirs and shaped apexes. These are followed by cambered-headed multi-pane windows at either side and then by square-headed multi-pane windows surmounted by ramped parapets with ball finials, which project into the roof area. At the far right and left are keyed oculi which have been bricked up. The entrances to the different departments are slightly recessed with semi-circular arches, above which are shaped gables lettered "GIRLS" at the left and "BOYS" at the right. To the left of the Girls entrance porch is an octagonal candle-snuffer roof. To the left of the Boys entrance is a bell tower with polygonal clasping buttresses ending in vase finials. There are balconies to all four sides, above which are paired louvred bellcote openings. Above these are gablets to each face and a timber octagonal bellcote with arched openings and a domed lead roof surmounted by a weather vane. The long ridge of the main body features a number of small vents with conical caps and an octagonal louvre at the centre in the form of a small bellcote with a domed lead cap. The rear façade has shaped and plain gables to the various classrooms, also arranged in a long symmetrical front facing the playground. Attached at the left of centre by a corridor wing is a two-storey classroom block appearing to date from the 1950s, which is not included as part of this item.

Interior: The building has wide corridors with tiled flooring and tiling to the dado, with continuous central heating grilles let into the floor. The classrooms and assembly hall have decoratively chamfered timbers to the roof trusses.