Sir John Cass School

Sir John Cass School

A primary school built in 1908, designed by Arthur William Cooksey (1865-1922) in the neo-Wren style. Constructed of red brick and Portland stone with a green slate roof.

The building is planned roughly as an L-shape, consisting of two and three storeys with attic and basement. The main north-east facing elevation displays fourteen bays arranged in the pattern 3-1-6-1-3. The central section rises two storeys with Ionic giant order pilasters at first floor level supporting a modillion cornice. Ground and first floor windows are mullion and transom, surrounded by rubbed brick. Flanking pedimented stone-faced bays feature rusticated ground floors with arched openings topped by heavy blocked aedicules containing lead statues representing a charity boy and girl. Above these are Ionic pilasters flanking an arched window, with richly carved swags and a round window overhead beneath an open pediment. A square domed cupola crowns the centre of the elevation. Three-bay side ranges have angle quoins with pilasters to ground floor angles and carved date and inscription tablets above. The south-east facing elevation is plainer, having been screened by buildings since removed during road widening, and consists of a ten-bay elevation with arched windows to the end bays and 6/12-pane sash windows to ground and first floors, with 8/8-pane sashes to the second floor. A rooftop playground with railings sits above. Two or three-bay spurs project outwards towards the street at either end. A short five-bay south-west facing elevation features a central stone frontispiece with channelled rustication to the ground floor flanking an arched door with carved shoulders, a blocked aedicule above, and giant order Ionic pilasters flanking an arched window with swag and round window beneath an open segmental pediment. Inner elevations facing the playground are mostly three storeys, with 6/12-pane sash windows to lower floors, 6/6-pane to the second floor, and curved stair towers with rusticated surrounds and mullion and transom windows. A three-storey rear block to the north-east has arch-headed windows to the ground floor, mullion and transom windows to the first floor, and round windows to the second floor, with a plainer lower continuation to the north-west.

The north-east facing block contains a ground floor room, now the Committee Room, with thirty-three panels of re-used late 17th century panelling brought from a demolished house at 32 Botolph Lane. These panels are painted with Chinoiserie scenes dated 1696 and signed by P. Robinson, representing the earliest known paintings of this genre in the country. The room also retains a re-used 17th century plaster ceiling and a bolection-moulded fireplace surround with Delft tiles. At the top of the stairs, affixed to a stone plinth, stands a fine lead statue of Sir John Cass by Roubiliac, relocated from the front of the earlier school building. The assembly hall is lined with pilasters and displays foundation stones, a fine fireplace surround dating to circa 1780 with a relief of a sleeping Cupid and slips of Brocatello marble, a Renaissance revival war memorial, panelling up to the dado, and arch-headed double doors. Classrooms occupy the other wing, accessed from corridors with internal glazing set within arched and shouldered frames. Staircases are tiled up to dado level.

Railings enclose the playgrounds on either side of the building.

Sir John Cass, Member of Parliament (1661-1718), left a bequest in 1710 towards providing schooling for the poor of the Ward of Portsoken. An inscription plaque in the assembly hall records that Cass endowed this school "for ye education of ye poor children born in this Ward, that they might be early instructed in ye true Religion according to ye Principles and Practice of ye Church of England". The painted room was brought from a house demolished in 1905 that had been formerly used by a school subsumed within the Sir John Cass Foundation School in that year. The school represents a fine example of the Wrennaissance style and contains elements of outstanding architectural and historical interest.