College Building, City University And Attached Railings

College Building, City University and attached railings

Technical institute, now part of City University. Built as the Northampton Institute in 1894-6 to designs by E.W. Mountford. The wing directly north of the tower and the former swimming bath to the rear were rebuilt in 1953-5 following war damage, designed by Owen Campbell Jones. Red brick set in English bond with stone dressings; roofs of graded slate.

The principal feature is the entrance tower in St John Street, square in plan up to the cornice. It has a round-arched entrance framed by broad pilasters with decorative wrought iron gates. A symbolic frieze carved in low relief by Horace and Paul Raphael Montford extends over the entrance and embraces the pilasters, topped by an open scrolled pediment. Above this are three tiers of windows between pilasters: to the first floor a single segmental-arched window with stone voussoirs breaking through the mouldings of the archivolt; to the second floor three narrow segmental-arched windows; to the third a lunette, again with voussoirs breaking through the archivolt. A modillion cornice sits above, then the tower becomes octagonal in plan with semi-circular bays to the corners. A large projecting clock faces St John Street, with a stone balustrade above. An open octagon, flanked by inverted consoles, supports the lead-covered dome.

The principal elevations of 1896 run from the tower southwards into Wyclif Street and Northampton Square. They are four storeys over basement, with dormers in St John Street added later. The elevations in St John Street and the first four windows of the return in Wyclif Street are elaborately detailed with moulded stone architraves to windows, sill band to ground floor, storey band between ground and first floors, and a deep cornice with egg-and-dart moulding and modillion at sill level of third floor, with a springing band above. All windows are flat-arched with 9/9 sashes to ground and first floors, except that two shallow pedimented bays projecting in St John Street have segmental-arched windows with stone voussoirs breaking through the mouldings on the ground and second floors. Two second-floor windows in Wyclif Street are also of this design. A flat-arched entrance with broken pediment links this section with the plainer elevations in Wyclif Street, which have broad round-arched windows to the ground floor, segmental-arched to first and second floors, with a principal cornice above the first-floor windows and a secondary cornice to the second floor above a parapet. Dormers with segmental pediments sit in the mansard roof.

There are three shallow four-storey bays with segmental pediments; at the foot of each the round-arched windows have a moulded stone archivolt interrupted by voussoirs. At the corner of Wyclif Street and Northampton Square there is a re-entrant angle, each face of which has a shallow segmental portico distyle in antis. This part and the elevation to Northampton Square follow the pattern of the St John Street elevations, with flat-arched windows to ground floor with moulded stone architraves, first-floor windows mainly round-arched with voussoirs breaking through the archivolt, and second-floor windows flat-arched again with moulded stone architraves and stone banding to the brickwork.

To the north of the tower in St John Street is a wing of two storeys over basement, five-window range, rebuilt in 1953-5. The ground-floor windows are flat-arched and the first-floor windows segmental-arched, with chamfered brick buttresses between them; the right-hand first-floor window is blank. Sculpted panels depicting technology sit above the first-floor windows, with a cornice and parapet above.

The northernmost part of the building, on the corner of St John Street and Spencer Street, is wedge-shaped in plan, two storeys leading back to a three-storey five-sided apse. A flat-arched entrance at the corner sits under a shallow segmental moulding with Gibbs surround. Above is an aedicule enclosing a round-arched niche with blocked columns, an open pediment and prominent voussoirs to the niche. Ground-floor windows are flat-arched, first-floor windows segmental-arched with stone archivolts, with a parapet above. The roof rises to an octagon at the corner with an ogee dome and spirelet.

Area railings to St John Street and Wyclif Street feature decorative scrollwork and plain finials.