Merchant Taylors School

Merchant Taylors School

A large group of school buildings erected 1931–1933 by W.G. Newton for the Merchant Taylors' Company, located on the north side of Sandy Lodge Lane at Moor Park, Rickmansworth. The buildings are constructed of 2-inch red brick with stone dressings, featuring tiled and pantiled hipped roofs. The design blends Neo-Georgian and Swedish Modern styles.

The layout comprises a gatehouse with quadrant walls leading to a Great Hall, flanked by the Headmaster's House and Dining Block. From the rear of the Great Hall, two arms diverge in a scissors-like plan, containing classroom blocks, a chapel, and a clock tower at the far end. All principal structures are two storeys in height.

The gatehouse is distinctive, with curved and angled walls forming a segment of a circle. A stone architraved segmental-headed entrance sits within a relieving arch, framed by timber doors bearing wrought-iron dates of 1561, 1875, and 1933. The structure has a brick plinth and stone quoining, with a parapet featuring banded brick rustication and a central stone plaque from the old school founded in 1561. Low side rooms contain round-headed windows in relieving arches, while a round-arched opening to the rear is topped with a stone sill and ironwork, with a segmental vault inside decorated with patterned brick and stone paving.

The Great Hall (1:7:1 proportions) is approached via low quadrant walls. The front elevation displays flint and brick paving before seven ground-floor round arches with brick key blocks opening to half-glazed recesses with decorative ironwork. Outer porches have segmental heads with stone architraved entrances and lozenge-glazed windows. Seven tall first-floor windows in stone architraves feature patterned glazing, with urns resting on sills and relief panels of athletic figures above the lintels. Empty niches with gauged brick and stone sills sit above the entrance porches. A continuous stone cornice with stone spouts separates the bays, beneath a stone-coped parapet topped by four dormers. Brick-quoined rebated corners mark the returns of three bays. The left return includes a foundation stone beneath a decoratively glazed ribbon window; flanking entrances sit beneath a projecting hood supporting a balcony with three segmental projections, fronting a tall central round-headed window with a patterned brick surround and flanking strip lights. A shallow gable bears an owl acroterion. The right return is similar in character.

The inner elevation of the Hall maintains the 1:7:1 proportions, with arms extending from the outer bays. A cloistered walk projects forward on the ground floor, comprising seven round arches with stone keys and relief panels beneath a coped parapet. First-floor windows match the front elevation, with relief panels depicting the attributes of branches of knowledge. Nine square openings beneath the centre and alternate bays have quoined surrounds and stone keys.

A nine-bay single-storey link connects the Hall to the Headmaster's House on the left. The house is H-shaped on plan, measuring two storeys with an attic storey. Its hall-facing elevation comprises five bays with slightly projecting cross wings and a central stone-architraved entrance with cornice. First-floor windows are tripartite with outer glazing-bar sashes. Extruded stacks project from the wings, and the six-bay returns have a central two-storey aedicule with a keyed ground-floor architrave and two recessed columns to the first floor supporting a pediment, with brick rustication and projecting outer wings.

A twelve-bay administration block measuring two storeys with an attic connects the Hall to the Dining Hall on the right. Its ten principal bays incorporate projecting ground-floor sections with round-headed windows and coved hoods to entrances, topped by three dormers. The short end features a tall round-headed stained-glass window.

From the rear of the Great Hall, two diverging arms branch outward, each containing centrally projecting, square-plan five-bay blocks. The left arm comprises the library and examination hall; the right arm provides similar accommodation. The library/examination hall has flat-arched ground-floor windows with brick rustication, a stone course beneath tall first-floor windows bearing stone key blocks, and two hipped dormers. The opposing block mirrors this arrangement but features round-arched ground-floor windows with a stone impost band, with relieving arches to inner bays and recessed entrances to outer bays, beneath a flat roof. Patterned brick paving ornaments the courtyard between these blocks.

At the far end, a single-storey range (2:3:2 proportions) links the two arms. It comprises three open round arches flanking a slightly tapering octagonal tower fitted with octagonal clocks and adorned with herringbone and other brick patterning, a weathervane, and flanking hipped dormers. To the left stands the chapel, featuring reconstructed stone mullion-and-transom six-light windows. The outer elevation of this range displays three central arches set back with raking buttresses to the tower, while mutuled timber eaves continue along flanking three-bay blocks.

Outer two-storey seven-bay classroom blocks have central full-height canted bays opening to ground-floor entrances. The outer elevation of the library and examination block features ground-floor French windows with decorative ironwork and first-floor round-headed windows with iron balconettes and a stone impost band, all accompanied by relief panels depicting famous figures. The opposing block's outer elevation comprises ground-floor round-headed windows in relieving arches and tripartite horizontal first-floor windows, with flanking entrance bays.

Interior spaces of note include a loosely Corinthian columniated three-bay entrance lobby to the Great Hall, topped with a pre-cast concrete coffered ceiling and featuring decorative wrought iron and brass fittings. The Dining Hall employs concrete piers and ribs in an aisled arrangement.