Gatehouse To St Mary'S Convent School And Attached Wall To North

WORCESTER

SO85SE BATTLE ROAD 620-1/4/684 (South East side) 01/02/99 Gatehouse to St Mary's Convent School and attached wall to north (Formerly Listed as: BATTLE ROAD Gatehouse to St Mary's Convent School)

GV II

Gatehouse with gates, piers and attached walls. Dated 1893 on stack. For Alfred Percy Allsopp, by architect John Henry Williams of Foregate Street, Worcester; builders Joseph Woods and Sons, The Butts, Worcester. Gault brick with glazed tiles; pseudo timber-framing to first-floor and fish-scale, plain tile roof; tall brick ridge, rear and roof stacks with cornices and oversailing courses, resembling clusters. Brick and tile walls. Cast-iron gates. Tudor Revival style. PLAN: irregular composition in L-plan, with single-storey and attic range to left; wide single-bay gateway with gabled storey over; tall 2-storey on basement, single-bay range with jettied gable over and 3-storey tower. Off-centre left gateway has elliptical arch with ovolo-moulded surround and hoodmould. Otherwise entrance to right at base of tower, a plank door. Ground-floor has 5-light mullion window to left range and 4-light, mullion and tramsom window to right. Upper stage: attic roof dormer at left with decorative bargeboards; 4-light wooden-mullion window in gable over archway; and oriel window to first-floor of right range; all with multi-pane lights. Tower has 2-light mullion and transom window to first-floor and crowning octagonal turret with cusped lights, ogee dome. To right return a 2-storey range breaks forward and has mullion windows to ground-floor and multi-pane casements to first-floor. Rear is jettied to first-floor and has jettied gables over. Multi-pane transomed windows to ground-floor and 3- and 4-light, multi-pane windows on corbelled sills to first-floor. 4-light window over gateway. Carved bargeboards. Double carriage gates have ornate scrolled motifs. Embattled walls approximately one metre high. Quadrant wall to left of carriage arch approximately 5 metres long has octagonal pier to each end, that to right abuts pedestrian gateway with low piers, square on plan and with ogee caps; further stretch of embattled wall rising to two metres in height, for approximately 6 metres. Battlements embellished with scrolled vine motif. An impressive example of a Domestic Revival gatehouse, forms a group with St. Mary's Convent School, and St. Mary's Convent Junior School and Kindergarten, Battenhall Avenue (qqv). (Leach, Annette: The House that William Built - the history of Battenhall Mount: Birmingham University: 1993-).