Franciscan Primary School Including Play Sheds, School Keeper'S House (No. 221) And Stores

Franciscan Primary School including play sheds, school keeper's house (No. 221) and stores

A former elementary school, now functioning as a primary school, built between 1907 and 1908 to designs dated 1905 by the London County Council Architects' Department (Education) under TJ Bailey. The infants' block was altered in 1938-9, and small additions were made around 2001 and later.

The buildings are constructed from stock brick in English bond with some red brick in both English and Flemish bond, and feature red brick, terracotta, stone and reconstituted stone dressings. The roofs are tiled or slated.

The school comprises three separate blocks, now linked by low passages. The infants' block faces Franciscan Road, while identical girls' and boys' blocks stand to the rear. The complex includes perimeter covered play sheds and lavatories, together with a separate school keeper's house.

The infants' block presents a nearly symmetrical roadside elevation altered in 1938-9. It is a two-storey, four-bay central block with single-storey gabled side wings and a rear hall. The roofs are swept hipped tiles with egg-and-dart terracotta cornices, except the hall which is slated with a dentil cornice. Tall stacks frame the central block. Windows are small-paned timber horned sashes and casements, some top hung. The entrance, inscribed 'INFANTS', is set within a stone doorcase with a pair of part-glazed doors with vertical lower moulded panels and a boot scraper to the left. Both gabled wings feature oculi: the left wing has a depressed oculus with long stone voussoirs, while the right has a simpler flush red brick opening, both with shaped glazing bars. These treatments are reversed at the rear. The rear and side elevations display raised red brick quoins, terracotta egg-and-dart cornices, and flush red brick window dressings in Flemish bond, with tall small-paned horned sashes arranged singly or in pairs. Square timber louvred ventilating turrets with domed caps are positioned on the roof.

The infants' block interior features a top-lit five-bay hall with a trussed roof incorporating longitudinal braces; the glazing has been replaced. An internal stair rises from the hall with square newels and stick balusters. Single-storey classrooms lead from the hall and are separated by small-paned glazed partitions and part-glazed doors. The hall has a brown glazed tile dado. The nursery retains a green glazed tile mantelpiece with an eared surround.

The girls' and boys' blocks were formerly identical, though both now have ground floor additions and are linked by covered passages. Each presents a symmetrical northern elevation with canted two-storey outer bays. The entrances, set back between the centre of six bays, are contained within sections under hipped tile roofs. The entrances are inscribed 'BOYS' or 'GIRLS' and each features a round arched stone architrave with extended voussoirs. Above the entrances are panels inscribed 'LCC' or dated 1908; one has been removed and is in store. Boot scrapers flank each entrance. Tall small-paned horned sashes or fixed lights are arranged in pairs or singly. Both blocks have raised red brick quoins and flush red brick window dressings. Terracotta egg-and-dart cornices ornament the principal elevations. The rear section of each building is faced with deep flush red brick in English bond beneath a reconstituted stone cill band. Square timber louvred ventilating turrets with domed caps and slender stacks are features of both blocks; one stack in each building formerly housed a bell.

Each block contains a six-bay top-lit hall detailed similarly to the infants' block, surrounded by single-storey classrooms. These are divided by small-paned part-glazed partitions and doors. Stairs leading to upper rooms, formerly staff rooms, have square newels and stick balusters. The north-west room of the girls' block retains a mantelpiece with an iron grate, while other upper floor rooms retain mantelpieces only. The halls have brown glazed tile dados, russet glazed brick to dado level, and parquet floors. The former boys' block contains an honours board at the bottom of the stair, listing boys who won places in further education institutions between 1909 and 1917.

Three three-bay covered play sheds are set against the perimeter wall, two to the west and one to the east. These are built in stock brick with red brick dressings and are roofed with hipped slate and tiles, supported on iron shafts. They are flanked by former lavatories, now stores, of similar construction.

The school keeper's house, built 1907-8, is a two-storey, three-bay building with a red brick ground floor and dressings and a rendered upper floor, beneath a splayed hipped slate roof. An enclosed three-bay porch of red brick with a splayed lead roof projects to the north, featuring small-paned fixed lights and a part-glazed entrance door. Flanking single- and two-light small-paned windows, now replaced with uPVC, stand beside the porch. An oculus in a red brick surround sits above. Three upper floor windows break through the eaves as dormers with segmental heads and small-paned casements. Red brick stacks rise from the structure. The interior has been refurbished and lacks special architectural interest.

The school was built to serve the Totterdown Fields Estate, a pioneering cottage estate constructed by the London County Council between 1903 and 1911. In 1938 the infants' block was adapted for disabled children. Until the 1970s each section operated as a separate boys' or girls' school under individual heads, but Franciscan School now functions as a single primary school. In the mid-2000s, the three blocks were linked by the construction of corridors.

The building represents an important response to early 20th-century developments in school design. The Elementary Education Act of 1870, steered through Parliament by William Forster, established the first national, secular, non-charitable provision for the education of children aged 5 to 13. The London School Board remained in control of school-building in inner London until its powers passed to the London County Council in 1903. By the Edwardian period, few neighbourhoods in London lacked a red-brick, Queen Anne style, three-storey school designed by ER Robson, the Board's architect, or his successor TJ Bailey. By the middle of the first decade of the 20th century, however, tall triple-decker board schools were falling from favour as educationalists reconsidered how building design could improve children's health. A major conference on school hygiene was held in 1904, and in 1907 the Board of Education legislated that schools be subject to regular medical inspections. Space, light and air became paramount, and schools were increasingly built as low-rise structures with suntrap plans, single banks of classrooms, open verandas and large windows. GH Widdows, the county architect for Derbyshire, was in the vanguard of these new ideas, and his school buildings proved particularly influential. Franciscan School exemplifies the response of the London County Council and its architect TJ Bailey to these developments in school architecture. The deployment of TJ Bailey's grand architectural style across modest single-storey blocks, rather than the large three-storey schools for which he was typically known, demonstrates an early and unusual instance of a London school planned as three separate blocks, heralding later changes in school-building practice and contrasting sharply with the vast triple-decker school on the same road. The building remains notably well preserved, particularly in its interiors.