St Mary'S Convent Infant School And Attached Walls And Gate Piers

The Stables and attached walls and gate piers

Former stables with hay loft over, carriage house with groom's quarters over and washing bay to front, sick bay and forge, now school. Built c1893 for Alfred Percy Allsopp, designed by architect John Henry Williams of Foregate Street, Worcester, with builders Joseph Woods and Sons of The Butts, Worcester. Additions and alterations were made c1960s for the Sisters of St. Marie Madelaeine Poster.

The buildings are constructed in gault brick laid in Flemish bond with glazed tile dressings and decorative pseudo timber-framing to the first floor and gables. Roofs are hipped and gabled with fish-scale and plain tiles. Tall brick ridge stacks with bands and cornices resemble clustered stacks. Cast-iron stanchions are used throughout.

The complex is planned as a closed-U, describing a horseshoe, with buildings forming an L-shape with curved walls to the north-west end, then a wall and gateway to the east, with further ranges to the rear. The style is Tudor Revival. There are four main ranges with varied roof heights: a low single-storey, single-bay former forge; single-storey with attic, two bays (former sick bay); a single-storey joining range; one-and-a-half-storey, three-bay range (former carriage house and groom's quarters) with a three-bay open canopy to front (former washing bay); and one-and-a-half-storeys, four bays (former stables and hay loft).

All buildings have a plinth. Doorways feature four-panel doors with three-panel overlights, splayed sills and ovolo-moulded surrounds with flat, voussoired arches and continuous hoodmoulds. Windows are typically two- to five-light mullion and transom windows, or multi-pane casements, with some later six- and eight-pane insertions. Roof dormers have multi-pane casement windows and decorative bargeboards.

The carriage house features an off-centre straight-headed archway with similar surround and former plank carriage doors, now with inserted windows. The first floor has three gables, with the centre gable taller and wider with decorative timbering and carved bargeboards. The stable range has three part-glazed, four-panel doors with two-pane overlights. Its first floor has three gables to front with decorative timbering and carved bargeboards; the centre gable is wider and taller with double pitching doors on carved corbels. The rear range is of single, one-and-a-half, and two storeys with similar pseudo timber framing to upper stages and carved bargeboards. The north-western range is single-storey and embattled.

The adjoining walls, approximately 1 metre high, are embattled with octagonal gate piers featuring blind tracery and blank shields to upper panels with ogee caps. Battlements are embellished with scrolled vine motif. A similar embattled covered carriage entrance exists at the rear.

The interior was not inspected at listing.

This is an architecturally distinguished example of former domestic stables in Domestic Revival style, forming a group with St. Mary's Convent School, Battenhall Avenue, and St. Mary's Convent School Gatehouse, Battle Road.