The Village College

TL 5446 LINTON CAMBRIDGE ROAD (North Side)

15/79 The Village College

GV II

Village College. 1937. Architect S.E. Urwin (b.1892 d.1968), in collaboration with H. Morris Director of Education for Cambridgeshire. Modern movement style. Handmade 'Essex Primrose' brick by Collier & Co, concrete dressings, steel window frames. Roofs with steel or wooden frames covered with asphalt. Single storey asymmetrical arrangement, main east-west range with central corridor, banked range of classrooms at right angles to west end and assembly hall at right angles to east end and to the south side of the main east entrance. The library, common room, and lecture hall continue the main range to the east on the north side of the main entrance. Entrance elevation: stepped paved court leads to double doors with side lights in segmental jambed opening decorated with blue eggshell tiles, plain parapet above with tower block rising behind with vertical and horizontal moulded brick bands and tall single-light steel windows. Interior: details designed by Urwin remain in plain wooden panels to public rooms and fittings to school rooms, and some items of furniture. The village colleges were designed to integrate school and village requirements. Linton was the third college to be built in Cambridgeshire and the second by S.E. Urwin. Building began in 1935/6 on Bottisham and Linton and it is thought that the designs for these buildings influenced Gropius and Fry in their building of Impington College in 1938.

Morris, H, The Village College. 1925 Duchin, K, S E Urwin Cambs. County Architect 1934-39. C.C. The Architects Journal, Oct. 14, 1937 The Builder. Sept 2. 1938 Pevsner. Buildings of England, p425

Listing NGR: TL5570246917