Emmanuel College Sports Pavilion, including Groundsman's House and stable

Emmanuel College Sports Pavilion, Groundsman's House and Stable

A sports pavilion with attached Groundsman's House and separate stable, built for Emmanuel College in 1910 to the designs of Reginald Francis Wheatly and Edward Ford Duncanson.

The complex comprises a pavilion facing north-west over the sports ground with two angled wings containing changing facilities, one extending eastwards and the other south-westwards. A third range extends south-eastwards from the rear of the pavilion, containing a small catering room that links to the L-shaped Groundsman's House. On the south side of the south-west wing stands a separate stable with a rectangular plan.

The buildings are constructed of brick covered in roughcast render painted in cream and pale pink, with roofs of red plain tiles and bonnet tiles.

The pavilion's complex roofscape of steep, sweeping pitches gives it a picturesque character tempered by Classical elements. The main north-west range has a hipped roof with louvred gablets and small gabled parapets at each corner, surmounted by a decorative copper cupola with a polygonal base featuring a raised chevron pattern and a polygonal bell-shaped roof with weathervane supported by a wooden balustrade. The range has a central triple-leaf multi-pane glazed door flanked by similar two-leaf doors, either side of which is a tall twelve-pane fixed window, all with wooden glazing bars. A flat-roofed loggia with a moulded and dentilled cornice supported by Tuscan columns is attached to the front of the range. This moulded cornice is continued on the flat-roofed angled wings, which are lit by top-opening cross casements with slanting sills. The east wing has a loggia of three round arches with moulded impost bands and three regularly spaced voussoirs of tiles laid on edge, painted cream. It has two windows and a new door to a small shower extension designed in the same style and materials. The south-west wing is divided into five window bays by attached square piers, with recessed windows having pronounced sloping tiled sills. The end wall is lit by two windows, and the rear elevation by two windows at either end.

The narrow single-storey range linking the pavilion to the house has a pitched roof that continues as a hipped pentice on the rear west side of the house and features a particularly tall red brick ridge stack with raised vertical brick strips around the top. The L-shaped two-storey Groundsman's House has a pitched roof sweeping downwards to ground-floor level over the entrance hall on the east front side. The roof has plain narrow bargeboards and a moulded wooden cornice returned onto the gable ends to form kneelers with four raised corner bands below. There is a short ridge stack with four tapered tile pots on the north-south aligned roof and a tall rebuilt stack rising from the south slope of the east-west aligned roof, both with vertical brick strips. The east frontage has, on the left, a gabled canopy with a pierced segmental arch supported by shaped brackets over the door with vertical planks and top glazing. A three-light straight-headed dormer sits in the angle of the roof above. The projecting gabled bay to the right is lit on the ground floor by a six-light casement window with wooden glazing bars, mullions and transoms and a lintel in the form of a hipped pentice. The first-floor window above is similar but smaller. The right return is lit by two ground-floor cross windows and a small two-light window above. The south gable end is dominated by a flat-roofed canted bay window with a six-light window above.

Interior

In contrast to the rather homely vernacular elevations, the interior of the main north-west range is in a handsome Wrenaissance style. It is a large single space with canted ends featuring built-in storage benches, a parquet floor, heavy moulded cornice and a decorative canted ceiling with ovolo-moulded ribs, painted white like all internal joinery. Mid-height panelling has vertical panels and a moulded cornice. The wall opposite the entrance door has a segmental arched recess flanked by panelled piers with a heavy moulded cornice supported by paired consoles. The fireplace within the recess retains the original fuel stove set in a semi-circular arched surround of decoratively laid brick with a wooden moulded mantelshelf, flanked by four-panelled doors in moulded doorframes, one leading to the catering room and the other to a cupboard. Both the catering room and the linked house retain built-in storage. The canted ends of the room have arched openings with moulded segmental arches supported by consoles, leading through to the changing rooms, one of which retains original built-in storage benches and rows of clothes hooks with modern shower facilities.

The Groundsman's House has simple fixtures, fittings and joinery including four-panelled doors with brass knob handles and lock cases, and a dogleg stair with closed string, stick balusters and square capped newel posts. The hall and two reception rooms have parquet floors. One reception room has a moulded picture rail and simple fireplace surround with dentilled cornice; the other has a coved ceiling cornice and a service bell and indicator board with 'front door' and 'back door'. The first floor contains three bedrooms, two retaining simple wooden fireplace surrounds with cast-iron grates, and one retaining a built-in cupboard with panelled doors.

The detached stable has a double-height central bay with a very steeply pitched roof sweeping down over flanking single-storey tile-hung storage bays recessed on the west frontage. The large opening to the stable has lost its original door, and the doors and windows to the store rooms have been replaced. The gable head projects over the hay loft hatch supported by wooden brackets. The rear east side has a series of wooden brackets, presumably for holding grass-cutting equipment, protected by a pentice roof, with a bottom-opening window just above this roof. Internally, the stable retains the floor of the hay loft with an opening for access, though none of the internal stable fittings survive.