North Western Block At The British School

The North Western Block at the British School is a former girls and infants school built between 1857 and 1858. It is constructed of red brick in Flemish bond with a Welsh slate roof. The building is two stories tall and features three rows of twelve bays in a dignified classical style.

The façade includes a first-floor band and a modillion brick cornice. The road elevation has an open pediment with a date stone and a circular window in the tympanum. There are three narrow round-arched windows on the first floor, each with 10-pane sash windows and key blocks. On the ground floor, there is a central projection with two stone steps leading up to a six-panel double door, which is topped by a fanlight and set within a keyed round arch. Flanking this door are six-pane sash windows, and there is an entablature above.

The right return of the building has a configuration of four, three, and five bays, with the center slightly projecting and pedimented. The central doorway features a bracketed cornice, with an additional doorway on the right. The windows are predominantly 16-pane sashes, with 12-pane sashes in the center and a 12-pane sash flanked by 8-pane sashes on the first floor of the center.

Historically, this building is part of a school that was originally founded in 1810 by William Wiltshire, a lawyer from Hitchin.