former Ensham Street School including school keeper's house and front wall with gates and railings

Former Ensham Street School including school keeper's house and front wall with gates and railings

A late 19th-century board school built on a standard triple-decker plan with three main floors containing the infants', girls' and boys' schools respectively. The building is constructed of red brick with buff terracotta dressings, clay tile roof and white-painted woodwork.

The school comprises three main floors served by four staircases—two in the centre and one in each outer wing. Boys entered from the north via the central stairwells, while girls and infants entered from the south via the wings. Each floor originally contained a large south-facing hall with classrooms to the north and short corridors to east and west providing access to further classrooms, cloakrooms and WCs. Above the latter are mezzanines containing teachers' offices, and the attic above the hall block presumably once contained art rooms.

The exterior displays rich Northern Renaissance and English Baroque elements characteristic of T J Bailey's work with the School Board for London, featuring a profusion of moulded terracotta dressings and large multi-paned sash windows. Windows are square-headed on the ground floor, segment-headed with terracotta aprons and keystones on the first floor, and square-headed again in moulded terracotta surrounds on the top floor, beneath a plain frieze, heavy modillion cornice and ridge-line crowned with broad flat-topped rectangular stacks.

The symmetrical north-west front to Franciscan Road is divided into five sections comprising a pedimented centrepiece and outer cross-wings joined by recessed linking ranges. Two very tall arched recesses run almost the full height of the centrepiece, with small windows indicating the position of the two central stairs. Below, twin boys' entrances are set between miniature Doric columns, beneath an architrave with triglyphs, dentil cornice and little segmental pediments. High above, just below the sharp triangular pediment, is a four-light window enclosed in another small Doric aedicule. The outer wings have pediments matching the centrepiece; the north-east wing, a late addition, is windowless.

The south-east elevation to the playground has a similar five-part division but is less regular. The hall block projects in the centre, flanked to the left by a staircase bay with girls' and infants' entrances below and a big semicircular window and balustrade above. The corresponding bay to the right is positioned differently and is less richly decorated. The outer wings have acute pediments and circular windows with enriched keystone surrounds (the north-east wing's example being plainer), and short return elevations have similar pediments above their projecting middle bays.

The interiors are plain and functional, typical of board schools, and have undergone some alteration. The three halls feature big round-arched fireplaces with moulded overmantels at either end, while many classrooms retain smaller green-tiled fireplaces bearing the School Board for London monogram. Internal windows and glazed doors with multi-pane glazing similar to the exterior survive in most parts of the interior, allowing light to pass between classrooms, corridors and halls. A few original built-in timber cupboards also survive.

The boundary wall to Franciscan Road is formed of a series of scalloped bays with School Board for London-monogrammed railings, each bay flanked by square pediment-capped piers. The boys' entrances to either side have lost their enclosing archways but retain their gates, which are scrolled to match the railings.

Alongside the school, with its own entrance to Franciscan Road, stands the former school keeper's cottage. This is a small two-storey cottage of red brick and terracotta, featuring a big triangular gable to the right and a little semicircular-headed dormer above the altered entrance bay to the left. Both the cottage and the boundary wall contribute significantly to the special interest of the site.

A red-brick single-storey annexe in the playground to the east of the main building, together with the plain stock-brick boundary wall and associated structures enclosing the playground on its east and south sides, are of lesser importance.