Kenmont Primary School

Kenmont Primary School is a board school designed in 1883-4 by E R Robson for the School Board for London, with completion occurring after 1894. The building is constructed in stock brick with red brick and some Portland stone dressings, beneath a slate roof.

The school is a three-storey building that originally contained an infants' department on the ground floor with girls' and boys' departments on the floors above. Like other later School Board for London schools, each floor comprises a large assembly hall and a series of smaller classrooms arranged along a corridor. Staircase towers connect the main floors and provide access to mezzanine offices positioned between them. The somewhat unusual plan, possibly resulting from the constricted site or the two-phase construction sequence, places the hall block projecting from the north-west corner rather than occupying the central position typical of Robson's other designs.

The exterior exhibits Robson's characteristic Queen Anne Revival style. Rather than the shaped gables seen in many of his other works, the roofline here features a crenellated parapet. Windows are large multi-pane timber sashes or casements, either square- or segment-headed, arranged in pairs across the lower two storeys and in groups of three above. Chimneys are broad ridged slabs. The bottom storey is entirely faced in red brick, with red-brick pilasters and buttresses marking the bay divisions. The east elevation to Kenmont Gardens is symmetrical and flat-fronted, contrasting sharply with the dramatic and asymmetrical west elevation. Here, unequal projecting wings—classrooms to the right and the hall block to the left—frame a massive polygonal tower containing six mezzanine floors of cloakrooms and office mezzanines. This tower is topped by a spire, cupola and weathervane, and flanked by two lower stair-towers. The short south elevation displays a stone plaque inscribed '1883 KENMONT GARDENS SCHOOL'. The north elevation is dominated by a tall semicircular projection forming the third stair-tower. All three stair-towers contain departmental entrances marked by stone lintels inscribed INFANTS, BOYS and GIRLS respectively.

The interiors are utilitarian though well preserved. Internal doors and windows serving classrooms, corridors, stairwells and halls largely remain intact, as do herringbone wood-block floors and classroom fireplaces featuring a variety of moulded surrounds. Notably, some of the sliding timber partitions that permitted adjoining classrooms to be divided or combined have survived. The north stairwell is lined with glazed white tiles carefully fitted to its curving outer wall. The second-floor corridor is floored in coloured quarry tiles rather than the conventional hardwood blocks. A further unusual survival is a panelled timber enclosure containing a dumb-waiter.

Two small ancillary buildings stand on the western side of the playground: a former cookery and laundry classroom and a school keeper's cottage. Brick boundary walls bound the site along Valliere Road, Kenmont Gardens and Ridgeley Road. These buildings and structures are excluded from the listing.