Tabard Street Centre (Former Tabard Street School)

Tabard Street Centre, formerly Tabard Street School

A school built in 1873 and completed in 1874 in Bermondsey, designed by Frederick W Roper for the London School Board. The building was converted to residential flats in the 1990s.

The school is constructed in stock brick in English bond, relieved by red and white brick with stone dressings. The original roofs have been renewed but follow the same style and design as the originals.

The building has an L-shaped plan of three storeys with a four-stage bell tower positioned near the south-east corner. The principal elevation faces east, where the two wings meet and the tower provides a picturesque focal point. Most windows have flat heads with chamfered stone lintels set under brick relieving arches. The tympana above the windows are decorated with a basket-weave pattern in brick. Several high stacks with simple brick caps are present.

The long elevation to Hunter Close features three bays of paired windows beneath gabled half dormers. Each gable contains ventilating slits in the apex. A large bay with first and second-floor paired windows is set in double-height pointed-arched recesses and contains an entrance marked "Infants", finishing in a facing gable with a stack running through the peak. The tympana display the initials "SBL" and the date "1873". The return to the left contains an entrance marked "Girls" set in a pointed aedicule. A single-storey addition of lesser architectural interest is also present.

The interior has not been inspected during listing. Following conversion to residential use, some original features such as staircases, roof structure and fireplaces may survive, although the plan form is likely to have been altered.

The school was built by the London School Board two years after its establishment in 1871, following the Elementary Education Act of 1870, which compelled the attendance of young children at school and prompted widespread school building across the country. Originally known as the Great Hunter Street School, it was one of the first wave of schools built in this period when the Board commissioned designs from private architectural practices. The design demonstrates the informality characteristic of early School Board style, with hints of Gothic Revival but an overall emphasis on direct, simple construction. It predates the distinctive Queen Anne style architecture evolved by the Board's architect E.R. Robson, which would later become the norm for London Board schools. Schools from this early period of private architect designs are of particular interest where they survive, as many have been demolished or significantly altered.