Former Nichol Street Infant School

Former Nichol Street Infant School

This is a former infant school built to the design model established by Edward Robert Robson in 1874, comprising a large single-storey building with stock brick walls decorated with red-brick and stone dressings. The roof is clad in corrugated metal sheeting, which has been replaced.

The building follows Robson's standard arrangement for a large infant school. It is organised around a spacious, cross-ventilated schoolroom in the centre, flanked at either end by two pairs of smaller classrooms intended for junior and senior infants. Access is provided by twin doorways in low ancillary ranges at the rear, which also house cloakrooms, lavatories and a staff-room. These ranges flank a central stair-tower that gives access to a covered roof-top playground and exercise yard.

The external design displays the restrained 'Queen Anne' manner characteristic of Robson's work for the School Board for London, with moulded red-brick decoration and large, white-painted multi-pane sash and casement windows. The main west elevation facing Club Row is composed of ten bays arranged as 1-8-1. The middle eight bays, containing the schoolroom, are treated as a continuous arcade with large tripartite windows set in arched openings separated by fluted red-brick pilasters. The broad outer wings contain the classrooms and feature similar arched openings flanked by narrow rectangular windows with keystone heads. These wings once had tall chimney stacks, now truncated. A moulded stone cornice extends across the full width of the building, above which the first-floor playground is enclosed by plain iron railings set between square brick piers. These piers support a low-pitched hipped roof covered in replaced corrugated metal sheeting, which extends over the outer wings, which have low enclosed attics. The arcading continues on the return walls, though here with single rather than tripartite windows, and on the rear elevation between the deep projections formed by the outer classroom wings and central stair-tower. The stair-tower is crowned with a shaped gable and features twin covered access flights for senior and junior infants at lower level. The upper walls are slightly canted to allow light to reach the semicircular windows in the east schoolroom wall. Between the stair-tower and the classroom wings run low, flat-roofed ancillary ranges, each with an entrance doorway in a lugged stone surround. A smaller arched doorway provides access to the cellar.

The principal interior space is the schoolroom, occupying the middle eight bays of the ten-bay building. It is cross-ventilated and lit from both sides, and is divided into three semi-enclosed sections by brick cross-walls with large round-arched openings. This arrangement allowed multiple classes to be taught simultaneously by trainee teachers under continuous supervision by the head teacher. The ceiling is notable for its decorative treatment: the structural wrought-iron beams are sheathed in decorative timber boxing with cut-work ornament, moulded pendants and elaborate scrolled brackets. The end classrooms formerly had interconnecting doorways for supervision and access, and corner fireplaces, all now blocked. Original wood-block floors survive in most areas. The stair-tower contains what Robson termed an 'easy staircase', with comparatively deep concrete treads and low risers. The two lower flights converge on a landing with a barred iron gate; beyond this, a dog-leg upper flight leads to the roof. The covered playground is supported by an open roof structure with wrought-iron trusses and ties, though the south-east part has been rebuilt in timber.