Western Block Of Number 39 (The Former Beaufoy Institute)

The Western Block of Number 39, Black Prince Road, Lambeth, is the former boys technical college of the Beaufoy Institute, designed by F. A. Powell and built in 1907.

The building is a two-storey structure of red brick with terracotta dressings facing Black Prince Road. The main façade is dominated by a central projecting section with two side bays featuring quoins to the first floor and shaped gables that break through the eaves. Beneath a floral swag frieze bearing the school's name in Art Nouveau lettering is a wide round-arched entrance. On either side of this central section are roughly three-bay sections. The left section has windows possibly contemporary with the 1920s/30s extension, while the right section features a nine-light staircase window with a lunette window beneath, and mullion and transom windows in the end bays. The left section also displays a relief panel moved from the original 1850s Lambeth Ragged School, showing an image of a teacher with two pupils and bearing the inscription "Those that do teach our babes / Do it with gentle means and easy tasks". Below this is a plaque commemorating the foundation stone laying of the 1907 building. A first floor band and entablature at eaves level in terracotta run the full length of the façade. The slate roof is steeply pitched and features a bell cupola on the ridge of the main hall.

The interior contains a large double-height central hall on the ground floor with exposed arched brace trusses supported by scroll-like corbels and a decorative plaster ceiling. Floral swag designs adorn the friezes and pilasters around the large arched three-part end window and the front five-bay gallery, now glazed though originally open. Corridors flank either side of the hall with two large classrooms beyond. The south-west classroom retains exposed collar braces and a wooden boarded ceiling.

Small offices occupy either side of the front entrance, with the staircase to the west. The entrance hall has a chequerboard marble floor, green and brown glazed tiles to dado level, with pilasters, decorative frieze and dentil cornice above. The staircase is unusually constructed of brown glazed tiles with a moulded terracotta handrail. A three-storey caretaker's house stands at the rear.

Two large classrooms occupy the first floor with a smaller subdivided room at the front. The basement contains the boys' and girls' toilets and two rooms formerly used as large and small workshops. The boys' toilets retain distinctive brown glazed ceramic urinals.

The building's most striking interior feature is its extensive brown glazed tiling running to dado level through corridors and classrooms, with cream tiling above in the WCs. Research has identified these as "Cockrill-Doulton Patent Tiles", invented by J. C. Cockrill, borough engineer for Great Yarmouth, and patented with Doulton ceramics. The system involved laying a course of tiles on each face of the wall and filling the intermediate space with soft concrete, whose weight held the tiles vertically. This method was stated to be cheaper than glazed brick and produced a smoother surface. The Beaufoy Institute appears to be the only surviving example of this technology, suggesting the system had limited application and was not widely successful. The terracotta dressings on the façade and the ceramic urinals and tiled stairs with moulded terracotta handrail are thought to be Doulton products.

The building has its roots in the early 19th-century Ragged School movement. In 1850–51, Henry Beaufoy of the distiller family (which had relocated from gin to vinegar production at their Lambeth factory) founded the Lambeth Ragged School on Newport Road as a memorial to his wife Harriet. John Doulton of Doulton Ceramics, Lambeth, was among the board of trustees.

Around 1903 the site was sold to the London and Metropolitan Railway Company. A new site was sought by trustees that included members of both the Beaufoy and Doulton families. Following occupation of what are believed to have been two temporary sites, the Institute relocated to Black Prince Road in 1907. The foundation stone was laid on 21st February by Mildred Beaufoy, wife of Mark Beaufoy, chairman of the governors. A plaque and motto from the original building were moved to and incorporated in the new structure.

Additional land was acquired during the 1920s/30s by the London County Council, and an extension to the main building was added at this time.