Sebright Primary School Including Former Schoolkeeper'S House And Cookery Centre

Sebright Primary School, originally Maidstone Street School, is a primary school built in 1873–4 to the design of CH Mileham and Kennedy for the Hackney Division of the School Board for London. The building was substantially extended to the north in 1894 by TJ Bailey, architect to the School Board for London, who also added a detached combined cookery centre and schoolkeeper's house.

The original 1873–4 block is constructed of red brick laid in English bond with moulded brick details, bullnose bricks to angles and window openings, some stone dressings, and a clay tile roof. The extension is built in brown stock brick in Flemish bond with red brick and some stone dressings.

The 1873–4 block is three storeys tall, originally containing infants at ground floor level, girls on the first floor, and boys on the second floor. It follows an asymmetrical 'E' plan aligned north-east to south-west, with the northernmost rear wing being the longest of the three. The stair is located in the rear central wing, with a one-storey attached wing to the south-east. The internal plan has been much altered, but originally comprised a central hall on each floor giving access to classrooms in wings on either side. Flat-roofed projecting links were added between the rear cross wings at each level to form lateral corridors connecting to the 1894 extension, with further alterations and infill occurring subsequently.

The 1894 block is three storeys tall, consisting of two parallel rectangular blocks placed at right angles to the earlier building on the north-east flank, linked by a central flat-roofed corridor. The rear (north-west) block is lower and has a toilet block at its north end. This wing originally contained five classrooms and a stair, though the plan has since been altered.

The exterior of the original block is executed in a dignified Queen Anne style. It features segmental-arched windows, either single or paired. Those to the top floor are keyed and combined with broader single openings divided by a central timber mullion. The windows are timber sash with top-hung casements. A moulded brick cornice runs around the building to the rear. The east front is symmetrical with five bays and elegant shaped gables, the end bays projecting. The north bay receives slightly grander treatment with flat-arched first-floor windows set in shallow recessed arches. Stone aprons beneath the first-floor windows bear an inscription recording the School Board for London, the date 1873, and the original name of the school. The south flank elevation is a good, sheer elevation of two bays with shaped-gable dormers. Pitched roofs cover the building. The single-storey wing has a pair of shaped gables to the street. The rear elevation, although altered by infill corridors between the cross wings and a lift shaft, remains good, with shaped gables at the ends of the cross wings. The central wing has an additional gable marking a change in height, and a projecting chimneybreast with a tall ribbed stack. There are tall chimneystacks throughout, some of which have been lowered. The single-storey south-east wing is executed in a similar style and materials.

The 1894 extension is three storeys tall, slightly lower than the earlier block, and is designed in a restrained Queen Anne style with large areas of fenestration. The front elevation comprises three bays, each with three windows; the central window is broader. Red brick pilasters separate the bays and are positioned at angles. Flat-arched windows are set beneath blind segmental arches. A moulded string course above the first floor is carried around the sides. The rear elevation is identical but of two bays. The gabled ends to the north are treated as pediments with moulded stone parapets. The recessed link block features broad segmental-headed windows.

The interior has been considerably altered, although elements of the original plan survive. Second-floor classrooms retain decorative open-truss roofs with arch-braced roofs and moulded tie-beams. The stair features a simple iron balustrade. The interior of the 1894 block is not of special architectural interest.

The subsidiary cookery centre and schoolkeeper's house, located to the south-west of the playground, is constructed of brown brick with red brick dressings and a clay tile roof. It is three storeys tall with two bays separated by a shallow buttress, designed in the Domestic Revival style. The ground floor has segmental-arched openings, with the entrance to the left. The upper floors have flat-arched windows. A lower, gabled projection to the rear features an oculus. The pitched roof has roughcast gables. A dormer on the east side also has a roughcast gable. Timber sash windows are used throughout. Tall chimneystacks flank either side. The interior was not inspected.

This school was one of the first thirty built by the School Board for London, which was established under the Elementary Education Act of 1870. These earliest schools were designed not by the Board's own architects but by independent architectural practices while ER Robson, appointed as architect to the School Board for London in 1871, was establishing his team and exploring new architectural styles. The Board ultimately built about 400 schools, making it the single largest educational provider in London and providing places for approximately 350,000 children by around 1890. The Board was also highly influential in school design nationally. Frequently built in slum areas, the buildings were designed to impress: they were large, imposing, and often three storeys tall. The London board schools were frequently the most identifiable and noble buildings in their late-19th-century urban neighbourhoods, famously praised in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's 'The Naval Treaty' (1894) through the mouth of Sherlock Holmes as 'Beacons of the future!'.

Charles Henry Money Mileham was a Scottish architect (1837–1917) who practised in London and appears to have been in partnership with an unidentified Kennedy in the late 1860s and early 1870s, when Edward John May was an assistant. Mileham was an accomplished architect, though most of his work has been lost. He had a reputation for school design and was connected with such well-known figures as WE Nesfield in his country house work. Mileham designed the Chubb Lock works in Wolverhampton (1898–9, Grade II listed) and undertook church work, including the Mackonochie Chapel, which he added to William Butterfield's Church of St Alban, Camden, in 1891.