3-12, Bluecoat Yard

A terrace of ten houses, forming a single building and known as 'nurse cottages', was constructed between 1687 and 1689 as lodging for pupils at the Bluecoat School. The buildings are timber-framed, with plaster, pebbledash, and colourwashed external surfaces, and have an old tiled roof with a coved plastered eaves cornice. Ten gabled casement dormers are positioned above the roofline, and there are five brick chimneys, with a projecting central flue creating a T-plan.

The two-storey cottages each feature a three-light casement window with glazing bars on both the ground and first floors. Numbers 3 and 12 have recessed entrance doors set within architrave frames with weatherboard heads. The remaining cottages have paired entrances. Numbers 7 and 8 have doors with two flush panels; the others have replacement doors from the late 20th century. The rear elevation contains small-paned casement windows on the ground and first floors, and the eaves line is broken by four large gabled dormers housing staircases to the attics. Additional casement dormers illuminate the rear attics, which have been converted into habitable rooms.

Attached to the rear of each cottage is a single-storey range of washhouses, built in the mid-19th century before 1851, constructed from colourwashed plastered brickwork with mainly old tiled roofs, though some incorporate corrugated asbestos. Internally, the cottages retain simple features such as ledged plank doors with strap hinges, newel stairs, and evidence of reused timber.

Christ's Hospital acquired the Bluecoat Yard buildings in 1685. Building accounts show that over £730 was spent between 1687 and 1689 on construction, including the cottages, which provided accommodation for 150 boys under the supervision of nurses. A Portland stone tablet, reset in rebuilt brickwork in the south garden wall of number 3, commemorates the rebuilding of the wall in 1737 by the Governors of Christ's Hospital.