Ivydale Road School, Caretakers Cottage, Related Buildings And Wall

Board school, now primary school, with caretaker's cottage, ancillary buildings and boundary wall. Built in 1891 by architect TJ Bailey for the School Board for London.

The main school building is constructed of brick in English bond with red brick dressing and black brick plinth, with stone dressings throughout. Roofs are tiled. The Caretaker's Cottage and hall to Bellwood Road feature roughcast gables.

The school building is rectangular in plan, with halls stacked one upon the other in a central block. This central block is flanked by stair entrance ranges, with classroom wings extending to either side.

The principal elevation to Ivydale Road is three storeys over basement, presenting a 20-window range. This elevation is organised as a series of six bays, each with three windows in a tripartite pattern. The centre window on the second floor is expressed as a Dutch gabled dormer. The windows have flat arches, except for segmental-arched openings within a full-height round-arched recess that separates the end bays from the four centre bays and frames the stairwell lights.

The end bays are the most distinctive features of the design, terminating in broad Dutch scroll gables with terracotta cartouches bearing the letters "LSB" on the shield. The centre window in each gable has a hood moulding finished with a pair of thin pilasters topped by an obelisk. Several windows in each gabled bay are blocked. Each centre bay is separated by a giant pilaster terminating in an entablature, marked by a stone console bracket. Moulded brick and stone string courses separate the floors, and a brick cornice runs to the eaves. Moulded stacks are positioned between the 7th and 8th, 13th and 14th, and 17th and 18th bays. The boys' entrance is on this elevation.

The right return has a five-window range and the left return a four-window range, both repeating elements from the main elevation. The left return includes one elliptical-arched recess with a flat-arched window near the corner, and an ornamental plaque reading "SBL, Ivydale Road School, 1891" in an elliptical-arched recess to the left rear corner.

The rear elevation to the yard is organised in four parts, with end bays of three-window range similar to those on the front, and a centre block of five-window range. Full-height pilaster-buttresses frame each window in the centre block, setting back at the second floor where an inverted console bracket articulates the top floor. Above each second-floor window, within a crenellated parapet and on line with the buttresses below, is an urn. An octagonal cupola topped by a thin spire and weathervane sits at the centre of the roof ridge. Entrances for Girls and Infants are on this elevation.

The Caretaker's Cottage sits at the corner of Lanbury and Ivydale Roads. It is a two-window range of three storeys to Ivydale Road, with a two-storey buttress in the centre of the facing gable and segmental-arched recesses to either side, each pierced by flat-arched windows. The right return has a full-height chimney breast divided into vertical sections in the upper area, with a single-window range to the rear. To the left of the cottage is a low single-storey building of utilitarian character, constructed of the same materials but with a slate roof, which according to a plaque was built as a "Cookery Centre" and is included for its historic interest.

A single-storey hall to the rear of the site along Bellwood Road has a pair of gabled dormers along its long sides lighting the hall, with segmental-arched windows.

All glazing is of original design. The interior retains original red and cream glazed tiles to the ground, first and second floors.

A brick perimeter wall bounds the site on Ivydale Road, returning to north and south.