8, Bluecoat Avenue

8 Bluecoat Avenue, Hertford

A former dormitory house to Christ's Hospital School, one of eight identical blocks, now in office use. Built 1904–1906 to designs by architect Alexander Stenning, with contractor Sabey and Co of Islington. The building underwent late 20th-century alterations.

The structure is constructed of red brick laid to Flemish bond with Portland stone dressings. Machine-tiled roofs feature lead roll hips and ridges, with red brick chimneys banded in stone and topped with stone cornices.

The building is arranged on a square block plan with a long rectangular projection for open dormitories. It rises three storeys, with the second floor partly set into the roof as a semi-attic. The style is Queen Anne.

The west facade to Bluecoat Avenue comprises three bays. It features a red brick plinth and walls with stone rusticated quoins and plat bands at first and second-floor level. The ground and first floors each have three windows: wood sashes with glazing bars, set back in reveals and topped with red rubbed brick flat arches and projecting stone key blocks. The windows have moulded stone sills and projecting brick aprons with shallow ogee profile lower margins. A wood modillion eaves cornice breaks at the second-floor windows, which are set beneath shallow lead-covered pedimented dormer roofs—the outer ones triangular, the central one segmental. In the central bay stand modern twin-leaf doors with raised fielded panels and blank fanlights, recessed in an opening with red brick flat arch and stone key block. Cast-iron rainwater heads, initialled 'CH' for Christ's Hospital and dated '1904', sit on the bay lines with rectangular rainwater pipes.

The south elevation displays twin projecting bay windows, each containing two sash windows with rubbed brick arches and brick key blocks separated by a central pier, with moulded stone cornice and parapet topped by ramped moulded stone cap. The first floor has one sash window to the left and right; the second floor features semi-dormers with paired sashes beneath triangular pedimented roofs. The ground floor centre is recessed between the bays, originally with narrow windows but now widened to form a subsidiary entrance with modern twin-leaf doors. At landing level sits a moulded stone band forming the sill of a tall window with moulded stone surround and semicircular arched head, crowned with a moulded console key block.

At landing level, positioned intermediate between first and second floors, is a stone-panelled spandrel bearing twin recessed, raised and carved cartouches with scrollwork and fruit, dated '1904'. The leaded glazing features obscured quarries, some with fleur-de-lys motifs, and stained and painted armorial bearings in the upper and lower lights.

To the right, the setback tail of the dormitories extends across four bays with paired sashes on all floors beneath pedimented dormers. A chimneybreast and chimneystack occupy the centre. The ground floor features a projecting canted chimneybreast with stone pulvinated frieze, cornice and stone-modelled cap with ogee profile. At its centre is a recessed rectangular panel bearing raised carved scrollwork and a shield charged with the arms of the City of London. Above a stone band, the chimney continues as a shallow projection through the first and second floors. Above the eaves cornice, a brick stack displays twin blank arch recesses beneath a moulded stone band and cornice. The rear (east) elevation comprises a single bay.

The north elevation repeats the centre chimney detail from the south elevation and features a single projecting rectangular bay on the ground floor.

Numbers 7 and 8 are connected at ground-floor level by a single-storey red brick block with flat roof behind a parapet topped with reclaimed stone copings. A triple-arched entrance comprises moulded semicircular arches springing from stone impost blocks.

The interior was not inspected.

Christ's Hospital was founded during the reign of Edward VI. Following destruction of its City of London premises in the Great Fire of 1666, the school relocated to Hertford and Ware. The Hertford premises were rebuilt in 1685 as twin terraces of dormitories facing across a central yard. The school underwent complete rebuilding in 1904–1906, when these eight dormitory houses were constructed. The new complex was officially opened by Their Royal Highnesses the Prince and Princess of Wales (later King George V and Queen Mary) during their visit to Hertford in July 1906. The school had been designed to accommodate girls only; the boys' school had transferred to Horsham in Sussex. The girls' school remained operational until 1984, when it too relocated to Horsham. The Christ's Hospital site was subsequently redeveloped, with Mill Road cut through east of the dormitory courtyard, and the dormitory blocks converted to office use with some internal subdivision.

The dormitory blocks possess group value with each other and with the remaining buildings of the former Christ's Hospital School.