Oakhill St Joseph'S Preparatory School

IPSWICH

TM14SE OAKHILL LANE 642-0/12/10030 (South East side) Oakhill (St Joseph's Preparatory School)

II

Mansion, now school. c1860. Preparatory school since 1937. Gault and white brick; roofs of graded Cumberland slate. Complex plan. Entrance front to north returns forward at east forming a half-courtyard. 2-3 storeys. In north side of main block is a 2-storey gabled entrance porch with a 4-centred arch leading in. Above is a canted oriel window. External stack to right rising into clustered chimney flues. To left is a passageway with 5 single-light casements, and in 2 floors above are ranges of 4 single-light casements. Gabled roof with a large square lantern rising out of a tower to terminate in a glazed viewing room lit through 5 single-light casements to each face. The whole topped by an ogee copper dome with a finial. Range to east also with grouped single-light casements and in the NW corner is a corbelled-out oriel. Mansard roof with a rectangular lantern with 4 by 5 single-light casements lighting stair-well. Garden fronts face south and west. South front has to its left the 3-storey tower rising into the viewing room. Its south face with a first-floor canted oriel, west face with clustered external stacks rising in front of upper windows and blocking them. Running south is a gabled conservatory with a transept, on a gault-brick plinth and with timber superstructure; cellar beneath. To west of tower are 2 gabled ranges at right angles to each other with a timber verandah running round south and west fronts. Various casement windows, oriels and dormers in roof. Further clustered stacks. INTERIOR: entrance hall and music room (former billiard room) with simple plaster ceilings with geometric patterns. Music room has a coved ceiling and an open timber screen at north end. Large staircase hall with open-well staircase: closed string, twisted balusters and newel posts, ramped handrail. Main doors with linenfold panelling. (Edward White: Map of Ipswich, Chief Town and Port in the County of Suffolk: Ipswich: 1867-).

Listing NGR: TM1585243329