Lilian Baylis School

Comprehensive school designed in 1960 and built between 1962 and 1964 by the Architects' Co-Partnership for the London County Council, located on the Lambeth Walk Estate.

The school is constructed of dark brick with exposed concrete floor plates and beam ends, and features flat roofs. It comprises two and three storeys arranged in a complex plan of linked low blocks forming a series of asymmetrical courtyards. The main elements include a first-floor hall positioned over music rooms, offices, classrooms arranged in a three-storey range to the south, science and art blocks, and two former houseblocks—one now serving as canteen and kitchen, the other in mixed community use. All elements except the two houseblocks and the hall are connected at first-floor level by glazed corridors. The classroom blocks have glazed ends with distinctive brown timber opening lights and white-painted windows to top and bottom; the corridor glazing features distinctive narrow mullions.

The hall block is the principal interior space of note. The first-floor hall is square in plan but made octagonal by means of a gallery running around all sides, extended on one side to form a stage with a projecting box housing theatre and film equipment. The hall has a diagrid roof and is reached via a timber open-well stair from a spacious entrance hall beneath. The other rooms have not been inspected.

The school was originally known as Beaufoy School and was built to replace four older secondary schools in the area, including the former Beaufoy School founded by Henry Hanbury Beaufoy in 1851 and rebuilt in 1909 as an early Junior Technical School.

Although never published, Lilian Baylis compares well with other schools by the Architects' Co-Partnership and with other listed schools. Its plan distinguishes it from comparable contemporary schools by Lyons Israel Ellis and earlier London County Council examples, which typically consolidated all accommodation in a single main block. Instead, Lilian Baylis comprises a series of low linked blocks forming asymmetrical courtyards, with principal circulation consisting of first-floor galleries. Each element receives equal weight, creating a consistent height of two or three storeys, a planning approach more usually associated with the better-known Scott Lidgett School in Southwark (1968–71). The composition remains extremely refined and elegant despite the addition of some plastic trunking. The school hall is a particularly handsome space—a square made octagonal by a gallery all the way round, well equipped with facilities for film and theatre, and reached via an open stairwell from the entrance hall below. The finishes are tough, yet the space possesses a sense of drama that is rare in a school.