7a St Paul's Square and Cowper Building

7a St Paul's Square and Cowper Building

A complex of three former school buildings. The main building at 7a St Paul's Square was constructed between 1884 and 1886 to designs by Basil Champneys. The Cowper Building was added to the south in 1899 to designs by local architect Henry Young. A former school gymnasium, probably built around 1880, stands to the east of the Cowper Building.

7a St Paul's Square is a two-and-a-half storey four-bay ashlar sandstone structure fronting the square with a pantile roof. The pitched roof features a central cupola and two box dormers with pediments, mullions and transoms. Four brick chimneystacks, mostly stuccoed to imitate sandstone with plain entablatures, rise from the structure. Cast-iron rainwater goods are retained. The walls are plain ashlar sandstone with a cornice featuring a fine dentil course and rusticated quoins. Rectangular latticed ventilation grilles sit above or beside windows. All windows have mullions and transoms containing leaded lights. Ground and first-floor windows are arranged in pairs, each with an architrave surround and plain entablature with apron. First-floor windows are additionally crowned with triangular pediments containing cartouches and swags above.

The west elevation to Merchant Place features two gables with round-arched openings in architrave surrounds and triangular pediments to their apexes. Both gables have box dormers and single bays of windows to their returns. The north gable is blind. The south gable has an attic window in an architrave surround and two bays of eight-light windows on both ground and first floors. Between the gables sits a round-arched moulded door surround with round-arched double-leaf half-glazed and panelled doors. South of this, a single door was replaced by a fire door in a concrete surround in the late twentieth century; a pair of windows survive above in an architrave surround. The south gable is constructed of gault brick laid in Flemish bond and features a substantial sixteen-light attic window and two bays of eight-light windows on each floor.

The interior of 7a St Paul's Square contains three large former school rooms on the ground, first and second floors at the north end, south end and west side. Internal partitions were introduced to some rooms in the late twentieth century. The rooms retain six-panel doors in architrave surrounds, cornices, dado rails and some picture rails. All fireplaces have been removed and blocked. A long corridor runs north-south along the east side with a straight stair rising southwards along the east wall. The stair features a right-hand volute over a twisted cast-iron newel post, wrought-iron stick balusters and a moulded wooden handrail with a swan neck rising from the volute. Two scrolled hooks are suspended from the east side of the balusters, possibly for lanterns. The left side has a twisted cast-iron newel post on the curved bottom step topped with a bun, from which a handrail rises to the landing suspended from the wall by brackets. A glazed partition and door were added to the east side of the landing in the late twentieth century, resulting in removal of some balusters. The stair rising from the first floor is identical. A high proportion of windows retain their original window furniture.

The Cowper Building is a two-storey red brick structure with sandstone dressings, laid in Flemish bond, constructed to designs by Henry Young in 1899. The building overlooks the river with a long pitched slate roof to the south. The east half has two additional pitched gabled roofs to the north, while the west half has a shallow-pitched roof to the north, all with slate covering and sandstone detailing. Five red brick chimneystacks rise from the structure. Windows generally feature timber mullions and transoms with multi-paned bottom-hung casements to their upper sections and two lights to their lower sections.

The south elevation facing the river has a shallow gabled projection on its west side with three first-floor windows, a hood moulding over the central window, and five ground-floor windows. To the east are two full-height canted bays, each with a scrolled sandstone finial to its parapet. The west elevation to Merchant Place steps back in three gabled sections. The longest section fronting the river has five first-floor windows and a ground-floor entrance introduced around 2014 in place of three windows. The north elevation of the west part has three bays with a central sandstone door surround featuring a flat canopy on brackets, a rectangular glazed overlight and flat-arched double-leaf glazed doors. The west elevation of the rear projection has three windows and a ground-floor door with large metal-framed windows to the first floor, likely replaced in the early twentieth century. The north elevation of the rear projection has two ground-floor windows, a blocked door opening and an early twentieth-century metal-framed window beyond.

The interior of the Cowper Building was converted to hospitality use around 2014. The original U-shaped stone stair survives in the north-west corner, featuring a curved bottom step, right-hand volute over a twisted cast-iron newel post and moulded wooden handrail over pairs of metal stick balusters. The interior has been remodelled for hospitality use and retains no original fixtures or fittings. A glazed stair was introduced in the north-west corner of the rear projection around 2017.

The former gymnasium attached to the east side of the Cowper Building is constructed of brick with a pantile roof gabled to the riverside. It features a blocked bullseye window to the gable and two storeys of flat-arched windows which replaced two tall round-arched windows around 2017. The interior was converted to hospitality use in the early twenty-first century with a first floor inserted.