Highgate School, Old School Building

TQ 2887 NORTH ROAD, N6 (east side)

800-/40/10012 Highgate School, Old School Building

GV II

Public School, now its principal hall, with classrooms underneath. 1865-7 by Frederick Pepys Cockerell for the Reverend Dr. Dyne, headmaster. Red brick with stone dressings and decorations. Slate roof with stacks on end gable and rear elevation. Symmetrical five-bay first-floor hall with projecting dias end, now stage, with oriel-reached via external stairs at opposite end, or via external imperial stairway in centre added as war memorial in 1949. Ground-floor classrooms not of special architectural interest. Main facade with central gable and sundial inscribed 'Vera Loqui aut Silere' over three reliefpanels. Lead parapet inscribed R S 1565. Mullion and transom windows with leaded lights and trefoil heads under flat arches. A line of shields forms band at first-floor level. Projecting stone oriel supported on single column projects forward of vaulted undercroft originally open, now imaginatively infilled by James Cubitt and Partners. Original entrance steps to south reached under projecting porch with particularly fine foliate carving. North elevation continues first-floor band of shields, with roseate windows over (some blocked) with stained glass. Rear elevation with projecting wing at stage end over undercroft, otherwise a five-bay composition with simplified mullion and transom fenestration dominated by massive central stack flush with elevation and with decorative brick detailing reflecting the fenestration pattern. Projecting buttresses between ground-floor windows. Interior. First-floor hall with exposed timber-truss roof Proscenium and stage formed 1933 with panelling donated 1934 by EdwardJeudwine (commemorated in central panel). The panelling to the body of the hall thought to be 1949, contemporary with central entrance. Highgate School was founded by Sir Roger Cholmely in 1565. This building commemorates its expansion and reform on the original site by the Reverend Dr Dyne from 1845 onwards. Sources: C AEvans and A Pwhite, 'The Story of Highgate School, 1938-1949', c.1950 S W Kitchener, 'Old Highgate, The Story of a London Village', n.d. M Seabourne, 'The English School. Its Architecture and Organisation, 1370-1870', 1971.

Listing NGR: TQ2835487496