Dulwich College, Main Building

Dulwich College, Main Building

School building built 1866–70 to designs by the younger Charles Barry. The structure is executed in red brick and cream terracotta with tiled roofs.

The building comprises three blocks connected by arcades in an ornate North Italian Renaissance style. The larger central block is nearly square in plan and contains the hall and principal rooms. The two side blocks, arranged on a stubby H-plan, are of more clearly Italian Renaissance character. Each of the side blocks is three storeys high, five bays wide, with hipped roofs above a cornice and frieze. At the junctions with the arcades stand towers: the tower on the south block features an open arcaded top storey and pyramidal roof, while the tower on the north block carries a spirelet above a clock. The side blocks contain classrooms and offices.

The central block's exterior is richly embellished with terracotta ornamentation across three storeys. The entrance facade is divided into three sections by heavy pilasters which contain niches with busts and decorative panels; pilasters also clasp the corners and rise to a deep cornice, above which runs an openwork parapet continuing over a tall central gable. The ornate pedimented doorway sits beneath a large hall window featuring free Perpendicular geometrical-type tracery with a round head. As the hall spans the width of the block, a similar gable appears at the rear (west side), though this facade is now obscured by a lower forebuilding recently extended in compatible style. Ground-floor segmental-headed sash windows are keystoned. The piano nobile is lit by round-headed sash windows surmounted all around the building by busts of notable figures from the world of learning. The second floor contains small square sash windows. Cream plinth, sill bands, and further decorative panels complete the scheme. Various small pinnacles and a larger central lantern with spirelet punctuate the roofline. The arcades, originally open, consist of nine round-headed bays issuing slightly offset from the centre of each side and have since been glazed.

The side blocks display banded rustication to the ground floor with a central doorpiece flanked by keystoned segmental-headed sash windows. The piano nobile features taller paired round-headed sashes beneath large round arches, each pair topped by a small bust. The second floor contains small paired segmental-headed sashes within segmental-headed surrounds. Decorative cream plinth, sill bands, and panels complete the exterior treatment.

The interior of the central block contains the Lower Hall, which functions as an undercroft to the Hall proper. The Hall is pillared in orthodox Classical style with wall pilasters and a rich coffered ceiling. Adjacent is the recent Wodehouse Library. Stone dogleg stairs with ornamental cast-iron balustrades and deep ribbed coved ceilings flank the hall to either side. The Master's Library, accessed from the top landing of the north stair, comprises two storeys of shelving and a ceiling of Tudor character, restored following war damage. The fireplace designed by Barry is surmounted by a tall seventeenth-century wooden chimneypiece with coupled Doric columns and crowning pediments framing two painted panels depicting the allegorical female figures "Pietas" and "Liberalitas". This chimneypiece is said to have been acquired by Alleyn and to have originated from Queen Elizabeth's state barge. The Hall itself is spanned by a hammer-beam roof with two tiers of arched braces and five curved barrel vaults creating a scalloped section. The lower braces descend to fully-modelled wall shafts. The roof is intricately moulded and painted. The Board Room is also noted as being of interest.

These buildings represent one of the most important educational rebuilding programmes of the period, incorporating modern laboratories and a hall finally separated from teaching functions. They replaced the Old College buildings located further north on College Road, were planned to accommodate 600 boys, and were made financially feasible by a compensation payment of £100,000 from the railway company whose lines ran through the college estate. The building forms a group with Dulwich Old College.