245, Old Marylebone Road

1900/0/10287 OLD MARYLEBONE ROAD 31-OCT-01 245

GV II

Former St Mark's School, now offices. C.1871-72 by Arthur Blomfield. Two and three storey hall with five-stage tower attached. Red brick, stone dressings, tiled roof. EXTERIOR: arched doorway of stone with plank doorset between shafts, set within gabled drip mould; moulded string course at impost level runs across to join lesser arched door to right. Four rectangular slitted lights at first floor level over entrance at second stage of tower; arcade of three lancets to right; three light window within blind arch above, to third stage. Fourth stage with blind circular recesses (probably intended for clocks) to each side beneath corbel tables. Narrow fifth stage with blind arcades of brickwork. Top stage consists of an open belfry, with two tall pointed arches per side; stone imposts. Tower terminates with a pyramidal spire with a gabled louvre to each face. INTERIOR: broad stone stair; lower room with 15-light mullioned window at south end, mullioned windows placed high up along west wall, lowered ceiling; upper floor with similar south window (compromised by insertion of fire escape), sash windows within recesses to west side, arch-braced collar-trussed roof with iron tie-rods. HISTORY: believed to have been designed by Blomfield at the same time as St Mark's Church, which was consecrated on 29th June 1872, this adjunct formed part of the mission of outreach embodied by the creation of this new parish. The builidng is identified as a school on the Ordnance Survey map of 1894-96. Together with the church and adjacent vicarage, the former school forms a notable group of High Victorian inner city religious buildings. The group was illustrated in The Architect, February 21 1880, 133.